


human disaster

by malatruse



Series: i survived mount massive and all i got was this stupid existence [1]
Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Death In Dream, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Nightmares, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2016-01-18
Packaged: 2018-04-22 19:42:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 27,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4848041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/malatruse/pseuds/malatruse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miles wakes up. Continues living. Post-game, picks up where the main storyline leaves off.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1

The first thing he saw was carnage, limbs torn off and smashed, and blood. Even though he heard the screaming before anything else, it was the acrid stench of the blood that reached him most strongly. In his nose and mouth. Spattered across the walls, seeping into the floor. Even with his eyes closed he could—

Could see...with his eyes closed?

With a strangled noise Miles forced his eyes open.

At first he couldn’t process what he was seeing. It was like two images laid on top of each other—one moving erratically through the once-pristine halls of the facility, the other shaky and unmoving, sharp blocks of yellow and black and red snaking away from him. A wet floor crushed up against wall.

The feeling was starting to return to his limbs, but when he tried to move they felt heavy and numb. It hit him suddenly that he should be in pain, in fact, he should be _dead_. The thought made him push his body even harder, and he strained to sit up, to move, to _anything_. Finally he managed to pull himself up enough to slump against the wall, and as he breathed a sigh of relief the pain snapped back on him.

Momentarily paralyzed with it, he let his eyes close, felt the vertigo of running through dim laboratories while his body sat still and tired. _Is this the walrider?_ He thought idly.

**ifeelyoulookingthroughme....knowthatyouhostmenow**

The words echoed back to him, warped and raspy but almost understandable. Miles forced his eyes open, heart beating too fast, tried to block out the double vision by willpower alone. And...it sort of worked. The frantic visions and screams started to fade, though not completely. Still, he figured that was the best he could hope for, if he was.... possessed by the walrider or something. If that was what had happened. Which seemed likely, considering the things he had seen. And heard. And felt.

**Yesyou....haveyouevenoticedyethatyouarenotdying?**

Miles looked down at himself. He’d already seen the stumps of his fingers, which had long stopped bleeding. With a grimace he pulled up his shirt to inspect the bullet holes, surprised to find that they’d more or less begun to clot. Most likely with the bullets still inside, but if the shots hadn’t killed him, he doubted the metal inside him would, either. In fact, even if Wernicke hadn’t tried to execute him, he probably would’ve died from the way the walrdier had thrown him around in the wake of Billy Hope’s death. After being shaken, hit, and dropped from the ceiling by the creature whom he’d seen turn Chris Walker into a bloody pulp, he shouldn’t have even made it as far as the door.

Though really, it was getting hard to count all the times he should have died. When Trager had him strapped in the chair, when Chris Walker had thrown him from the second story balcony, hell, he should have died the moment Murkoff caught wind of the whistleblower’s email. Not to mention all the horrors of Mount Massive he'd had the luck not to encounter.

**Godhelpmeithinkiveseenthewalriderhahahaha**

“Stop...” he hissed, teeth clenched, throat burning. The walrider’s voice felt like barbed wire being dragged across his temples, the echo of it reverberating unpleasantly against his teeth. Summoning his remaining strength, he pushed himself to his feet, still leaning heavily against the wall. His response only served to elicit more laughter from the thing, sharp enough that Miles almost sank back down again under the weight of it. He let his eyes slip shut again, not caring that he’d be seeing the trail of gore the walrider was causing, just willing the vertigo of overlapping images to fade.

And it did, though disconcertingly enough the view he was seeing was of his own body, swaying like it was on its last legs. His breath caught in his throat, and he opened his eyes again, turning his head sharply. Sure enough, approaching from down the hall was the skeletal figure that had been haunting his journey throughout the asylum. This time, though, he wasn’t afraid.

**Uselessweakness,** it said, stepping closer, featureless face mere inches from Miles’. And then it was moving closer, phasing through clothes and skin and muscle, before even the thought of defending himself could cross his mind.

At first it was like worms wriggling under his skin. The buzzing...the brightness... His senses itched in a way that couldn’t possibly be scratched. But he finally felt strong enough to move—was already moving. With a start he stopped, and almost fell over.

**Holdstilldontyouwantogetoutofthiswretchedplace????**

“I can walk on my own, just—“ They tripped again, and Miles had the good sense to put a hand on the wall to steady them. “let me—“ He tried to take a step, and the walrider tried to do the same with his other foot, sending them crashing to their knees.

**Youareweakletmedothis**

“Have you ever walked anywhere before? Don’t you just...float everywhere?” Or slither under closed doors. If the buzzing of the nanites wasn’t so bad Miles would shudder at the memory of that black mist creeping into the room. Instead he pushed himself to his feet again. _You’d think a creature called a walrider would be able to, yknow, ride the walls..._

**Miles.milesupshurifyouwerenotmyhostiwouldripthetendonsfromyourlungsforthat**

“Yeah, well....You would do that anyway.”

He felt the walrider laugh, the sound bubbling up from his own chest. It didn’t reply, but it also let him take control as they began the trek through once-white halls of the underground facility. Ahead of them was a smashed wheelchair, and instinctively his hand went for his camera. The walrider radiated amusement as he pulled out what remained of it. The viewscreen hung limp, connected to the camera’s body by a single wire, and the lens was smashed to the point of being unusable. Carefully, he flipped it over and pulled out the memory card, discarding the rest. At least he had the footage. Probably. Still, Miles felt the loss of the camera, which had been the only witness to the night’s events besides himself.

For a while he stumbled on without a concrete goal in mind. He knew from the walrider’s earlier forays that the service exit was no longer functioning, and the only other way up was the elevator that had brought him down. When he reached the main reception area he searched around for another exit, but the other doors were just as locked as they’d been before. There was nowhere to go.

But the walrider nudged him forward, toward the path that would have him retracing his steps to the elevator. _The maintenance trapdoor,_ Miles realized, and sure enough, this time he was able to haul himself up. But where he had expected to find a ladder, or a higher floor, there was nothing but the grimy elevator shaft as far up as he could see. Which admittedly wasn’t very far. He started to deflate with defeat, when he heard, **wellnowyousaidyouwantedtoseeusridethewallsdidyounotmilesupshur? Imayneverhavewalkedbuthisiamcapableof**

For a moment the buzzing grew much louder, the pressure in his temples pulsing strong enough to make Miles’ head swim, and then his feet left the elevator roof.

He caught glimpses of struts, red lights, numbers, as they rushed upwards, wind buffeting Miles’ body, and then they were out. Like a cord stretching, snapping, the walrider peeled out of him, and he sank to his knees.

“Where the hell are we?” he breathed.

**Air** it said simply. **airskywindrealREALfinally**

Miles looked up. The top floor of this building had caved in around the elevator, leaving him staring out at open air—well, that and splintered beams and dangling shingles. He saw the walrider’s triumphant silhouette in front of him, and _through_ it, a slightly zoomed in angel of the hulking form of the main wing, and the trees beyond it. It had stopped raining, and the barest hint of dawn tinted the horizon. He breathed a sigh of relief for all the time he’d been trapped in the twisting halls or deep underground or forced to run through the punishing rain.

Then the wind shifted, and he smelled the smoke.


	2. 2

He should have realized sooner. Father Martin’s self-immolation had set the chapel on fire, and no one had been able to—or even tried to—quench the flames. It wasn’t visible from where they were, but the smell... Even when he’d been in the chapel it hadn’t been so bad, but now the scent of burning flesh was all around him.

Carefully, Miles got to his feet. It was clear to him that they couldn’t stay where they were, and the situation reminded him uncomfortably of the time he’d spent crouched in then wet grass of the asylum grounds, out but not _out,_ weighed down by the knowledge that he’d have to go back in. The walrider looked at him curiously, but he ignored it, turning to face the elevator shaft. There was a ladder on the other side that looked like it had seen better days, but the next level was too far down to reach without it, and Miles wasn’t about to let the walrider do whatever it had done to get them up there. 

Before he could change his mind, he jumped. For a split second he was suspended over the yawning gap _(not that far, it’s really not that far),_ and then his hands were clamped around cold metal, feet scrambling for the ladder rungs. It creaked ominously, and he thought it was going to fall, but the moment passed, and he started climbing down. He could feel the walrider somewhere behind him, not laughing or questioning, just watching. Observing. Witnessing?

He kept descending, hoping to reach the ground floor, but he was only a few floors down when his foot reached for the next rung and hit empty air. _Shit._ Looking back, he could see a landing just a few feet up. The next one down was far, and too dark to see into. But he would definitely make it if he jumped, since he was above it and it was closer to the ground. But it would hurt.

He sucked air in through his teeth, climbing back upwards far enough to line himself up for the previous level.

This one had light coming in from a nearby window, and he could clearly see the carpeted floor and, best of all, no gate. Miles took a breath to steady himself, then pushed off the ladder and jumped.

His top half cleared the jump, but his knees weren’t so lucky. The pain knocked the wind out of him, and he started sliding back towards the edge. His stumps screamed in protest as he dug his fingers into the rug, trying to pull himself up, feet still trying to find some purchase on the wall. _Well,_ he thought, not for the first time, _I may have made a mistake._

Something grabbed him by the back of his shirt, hoisting him up and tossing him forward into the hall.

**WHATWEREYOUTHINKINGDOINGTHAT?? Youaremyhostiwillnotallowyoutodieuntiliamdonewithyou doyouunderstand ifyoudonotwantmyhelpfinebutiwillnotallowyoutokillyourself**

“I wasn’t...”Miles pushed himself upright. “Believe me, if I was suicidal I wouldn’t be here right now.”

**Thenactlikeit**

Shaking his head, he started off down the hall. The window by the elevator was the only one not boarded up, and he thought mournfully of his camera’s IR view. But the walrider flitted effortlessly through the darkness, eyes easily piercing the murky grey, floating ahead to investigate and sometimes pushing him forward when he hesitated. The area they had ended up in seemed almost untouched by anything except time; no blood, no cryptic writings, just mold and dust and many, many locked doors. It felt like the kind of area only kept for show, to display to potential investors way back when. He was certain that no one had ever actually been kept here, at least.

Suddenly the walrider perked up. **!!someone!!**

It surged ahead, and Miles rushed after it. He tripped, looked up just as it disappeared around the corner, almost fell right through the gaping hole in the floor.

Something had punched right through the ceiling above, crashing down who knows how far. It felt like the kind of damage Chris would cause, if he was still around. _All those times he was busy somewhere else?_

A terrified scream interrupted his thoughts, coming from somewhere below. A spike of adrenaline shot through him, and he forced himself to crouch down and inch close enough to the edge of the hole to drop down. He tried to focus on the walrider’s vision, but it was blurry with speed clouded by the thing’s elation. As soon as his legs hit the floor he was running, hobbling through a torn-apart doorway and down an adjacent hall. Around another corner, and the scream choked off into a gurgle that Miles had become too familiar with.

“Hello?” he called out. No answer. Something was slumped at the other end of the hall, and as he picked his way toward it he already knew what he would find. A corpse, not long dead, limbs torn to pieces, throat a red mess of blood. Blood Miles could still taste on his own tongue, clotting his hands—He shook his head until the sensory input was gone, tried to block out his second sight.

“Walrider!” he yelled, against his basest instincts. The word echoed slightly, but brought no response except another wave of adrenaline. Somewhere in the distance, there was another scream, this time accompanied by gunfire. A wave of panic washed over him, forcing him to his knees, and he did the only thing he could think of that would stop the thing’s rampage: balled his left hand into a fist, and drove it into the wall with as much force as he could muster.

It hurt. Miles bit back a scream, or at least managed to lower the volume on it. What came out was a pained groan that went on until he ran out of breath as he cradled the hand to his chest, ignoring the way it flared wherever he touched it. His stump of a finger was hot with agony, and he couldn’t even move his middle finger without biting down on his lip so hard it bled. It was probably the second-most painful thing he’d done to himself, besides investigating the damn asylum in the first place, but even so he grit his teeth in grim satisfaction. The screaming had stopped.

The walrider stood behind him, admonishing, and Miles asked it, “Who did you kill?”

**Menwithguns....murkoffmen. milestheywouldkillyouwithoutathoughtiftheygotthechance**

“What about him?” He turned his head towards the body slumped up against the far wall.

**......ijustwantedtokillhimallright? ishouldnothavetojustifymyactions, thisiswhatiameantodo**

“No.” Miles pushed himself to his feet and faced the walrider. “I can’t let you do that. If you really are intent on indiscriminate murder I’ll....” He swallowed. “Well, if I die, you die, won’t you?”

**Youwouldnotkillyourself**

“I bet I could find a way. Think of it as incentive... If there’s no one else left alive, there won’t be anyone to host you, either.”

Its anger washed over him, and it actually reached out as if to harm him, but all it did was say, **fine. Butifyouarendangerediwillkilltokeepyoualive.** Miles nodded in assent. It reached out again, and this time it really did grab him, pulling him further down the hall.

But not far. Before he saw the assault rifle, before he even heard the wood snap under heavy boots, the walrider was pushing him aside. Miles closed his eyes, saw with preternatural clarity the uniformed men, all armed, all gunning for his blood. He forced himself to watch as the walrider tore them apart, thankful of the pain in his hand for keeping him tethered to his own body as he felt their bones snap under its clawed hands.

One, two, and the third fell to the ground. But already he could hear the sound of running footsteps heading toward them. They had called for backup.


	3. 3

The walrider’s bloodlust surged, and Miles let it sweep over him. These were bad men, men sent to cover up what he had uncovered, and he had absolutely no reason not to wrench their spines apart and bathe in their blood. He let the walrider lead, cracking his own eyes open just enough to step over the trail of bodies in its wake. Something in him burned bright and hot, and he tasted anger that they would never know the hell he’d gone through, that any of the patients had gone through.

They cleared a path through the asylum, each unit they dispatched bringing more swarming their way. Miles had never considered himself prone to violence—even in this hellhole, his first instinct had always been to run rather than fight—but something about such wanton destruction was almost intoxicating. The walrider had surged ahead, but when Miles stumbled across Trager’s lifeless body, it returned to help him finish what he’d started. On some level he knew the doctor wasn’t completely at fault for what had happened, but that didn’t stop him from ripping and tearing at the corpse just as much as the walrider, if less effectively.

He slumped down, breathing hard , just as a bullet whizzed by his head. The walrider was up immediately, dropping the men with ease. They were all men. Not for the first time, Miles wondered why he hadn’t seen any women, not among the patients, nor in the female ward, nor among any of the corpses he’d bothered to inspect. _There’s so much I still don’t know about this place._ Things he probably would never know, maybe didn’t even want to know, but that he needed to find out, with the same burning curiosity that had driven him to Mount Massive in the first place.

He realized the walrider had continued on. More Murkoff goons—where did they keep coming from? He listened to the distant yells, watched as one after another they were torn apart. The gunfire had started to thin, and the taste of thick smoke had returned, even inside the building. _The fire must be spreading._ The desire to get out into the open again was overpowering. Somewhere ahead of him, the walrider had found the main entrance, doors finally, miraculously unlocked. The guards had already been dispatched, and all that remained between him and freedom was...

...A businessman and a patient?

Miles was on his feet so quickly it made him dizzy, but before he could take a step the walrider had already grabbed one of them, dragged him high above the floor (the way he’d done to Miles not so long ago) and had begun to pull.

He knew he couldn’t make it in time, at least not in time to save that one, but he couldn’t let that stop him. Was he Murkoff? Miles had no way of knowing, and the walrider had no way of knowing, and that made him clench his still-sore fist tight enough to renew the throbbing agony.

Once again the walrider glided back to him. It didn’t say anything, but at least had the sense to stay a few feet away.

“No more,” Miles grit out through his teeth. “It’s clear you don’t care who you kill, you just can’t–” his breath hitched. “Can’t stop yourself.” He tried to recall what he could of the experiments, the legends, Billy Hope’s nightmares. He’d unwittingly chained himself to a creature that couldn’t be controlled, and almost let himself get swept away in the intensity of it all. No. Miles couldn’t let that happen. This was what he’d been trying to prevent, the reason he’d shut down the life support systems despite his distrust of Wernicke. He couldn’t let the walrider run free, and there was only one thing he could think of that would stop it.

**Milesno.** It took a step towards him. **Nolookicanstop, icangiveyoupowerifyouwantit.... wecanbesostrongtogether....**

He could feel its projected sincerity, but still he shook his head.

**Lookletmeproveitoyou**

It moved closer, hesitating right in front of Miles, waiting for...assent? A response? He saw himself the way the walrider was seeing him, how ragged he was, how absurdly deep the dark circles under his eyes were. His mind formed the words _Prove it,_ and then it was merging with him once again, his— _their_ skin buzzing, the pain ebbing. _Get me out of here,_ he thought, and the walrider walked them (or rather, floated them) forward, back to the reception hall, past the still-bleeding suit, and into the dawn-lit courtyard.

Down the lane lay his car, and even stranger, a limping figure making his way toward it.

**Theotheronestillives,** the walrider said, **andlookathowiamnotattemptingtokillhim.**

“Yes, very impressive,” Miles mumbled, eyes still focused on his car. Had he left the keys in? The headlights blinked on; yes, he definitely had.

“He’s not going to make it through the gate.” The car stood still and unmoving; the man inside had finally realized that as well.

**Butwecanhelphim**

“No, don’t—“

**Iwillnotharmhim. Iamjustgoingtogivehimapush.**

Something like wind rose around him, just as it had in the elevator shaft, a black, buzzing wind that numbed his skin as it whipped past him. **Youtoo** , the walrider urged him, and he raised an arm, pointing it straight ahead. The _push_ rippled through him and past him, hitting his old car hard enough to spin it around and send it crashing through the gates.

Energy dissipating, Miles let himself sink to the ground. The walrider split from him and seemed to shake itself, then pooled in front of him, collapsing into a dense blotch of darkness against the amber morning light.

_I want to get out of here,_ he thought, lacking the motivation to form the words with his mouth.

**Wecango. Thereisnothingstoppingus.**

_You’re not...tied to this place or anything?_

It laughed. **Icomefromthemountainbutalsothemindsofmen. Icangoanywherewithumans.**

Miles pondered this, weighing the merits of bringing something so dangerous into contact with other people. But the thought of staying here at the asylum made his stomach turn, the idea of never seeing another human being outside of the asylum’s little circle of hell....

Plus, there was Murkoff to consider. They may have jumped ship at Mount Massive, but there was no way it was over. Miles didn’t like leaving a job half-finished. He had his footage, had a few contacts left (probably) that would be willing to listen to him, had a new lease on life, kind of. And the walrider had shown itself to be capable of restraint, which was more than he could have hoped for. So maybe, until he could figure everything out, he could just... go home. 


	4. 4

Before he did anything else, Miles took stock of himself.

Despite his initial fears, the walrider hadn't possessed him and worn his body like a decorative flesh suit. He still had his memories of everything that had happened, and everything before Mount Massive, still had a will of his own. But now it was the walrider keeping him alive, a slick thrum of life beating through him that he’d never been aware of before—well, before dying. On the outside, though, were the bullet wounds and the missing fingers and possibly a head injury. And his skin, well, it _looked_ dead. The color had drained out of him, leaving him looking pale and sickly. He looked like a zombie, and to top it all off, he had no idea whether it was going to get worse.

So instead of thinking about it, he pushed himself to his feet, swayed for a moment, the steadied himself. Walked _through_ the walrider, who seemed amused as it phased through him and recollected itself behind him. His own car was gone, but there were still a few armored trucks sitting empty in the courtyard. Their owners wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

The first one he approached didn’t have a key, and it had _definitely_ been too many years since he’d watched his friends hotwire junky cars after school. Before his frustration could really sink in, the walrider spoke up.

**Overhere**

It sat crouched on the gravel, something metallic glinting at his feet. Miles picked up the keys with some relief, but couldn’t stop himself asking, “How do you even know what stuff is, anyway?”

Even without a face, it somehow managed to shoot him a withering look. **Iknowhatyouknow** , **miles.**

“Okay, okay.” He turned the key in the ignition, and for a heart-stopping moment the engine stuttered, but it passed, and the truck roared to life. He looked around for the walrider, but it was already in the passenger seat next to him, once again radiating amusement at was he was sure it considered _trifling human contraptions_. Miles decided not to questions the physics of it, not after everything that had happened. Instead he put the car in drive and steered toward the exit, heavy tires easily crunching over the smashed gates.

He was _out_. The thought made him so dizzy he had to put the brakes on, only a few yards down the road. Everything ached. The walrider was looking at him, and the sight of his own body hunched over the wheel somehow brought home just how much of a toll Mount Massive had taken on him.

“Get in here,” he said finally, “I can’t focus with you doing that.”

With the walrider numbing his aches, he turned his mind back to goal number one: _get as far away from this place as possible._

They reached the small town in the shadow of the mountain and kept going. Miles had rented a room at the motel there, but his keys and money had been in his wallet, which along with his phone were now in possession of whoever had taken his car, so checking out wasn't really an option. Mostly, though, he just didn’t want to stay there. It was still too close.

The walrider stayed quiet for the most part, content to let Miles take control. It seemed to be drinking in the sights, which was fine, except for the times it would twist his head away from the road to look at something. They managed to make it out of town without getting into any accidents, without getting noticed, and most importantly without killing anyone. He breathed a sigh of relief when they finally got on the highway out of town.

Miles made a short to-do list in his head. _1\. Take a shower. 2. Destroy Murkoff. 3. Look into the walrider problem._ The urgency of the third one really depended on his own ability to keep control, so he figured the list order was flexible. Definitely the shower first though. Almost as an afterthought, he tacked on, _4\. Record experiences???_ If that was even possible. Everything about his situation was a big if at the moment.

An hour later, and he noticed himself drifting. Even with the dull throb of pain, the cold numbness suffusing his body, and the lack of double vision to worry about, the exhaustion was finally catching up to him. He groped for the radio dial with his free hand, clicked it on.

A burst of static blared from the speakers, and he cursed. As soon as he took his hand away it stopped, so he did it again. Same result. He resigned himself to having trouble with technology for the foreseeable future. Still, as long as he didn’t touch the dial the signal came through clearly. The music cheered him considerably, and when [an old favorite](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pCytK3LgfM) of his came on, he found himself humming along.

Every once in a while the walrider would perk up and ask something like, **Mileswhoisthis? Whatisthisongcalled?**

And he would say, “I don’t know,” or, “Read my mind and figure it out for yourself.”

With the radio singing cheerily and the stilted conversation, the drive began to seem more like the road trips he’d taken with his parents when he was younger. He hadn’t seen his parents in years, not since the messy divorce, but that couldn’t stop him from smiling at the memory. Even if the current situation _was_ a little bit different.

His good mood lasted long enough to reach a rest stop. They had enough gas to keep going for a while, but Miles needed to stretch his legs. The walrider was a cool weight in his chest, and when it was dormant like this, it was probably undetectable from the outside. Though, well.... the thought of a swarm of nanites burrowed into his skin made him want to scratch at it. He also suspected it had weakened, so far from its point of origin, but it hadn’t said anything about wanting to go back, which he was thankful for.

It was nearing noon, and the rest stop was beginning to fill up with people. Miles weighed his options, then ducked into one of the bathrooms to clean himself up as much as he could. There. Now he looked less like someone who had escaped an asylum, and more like someone who had a bunch of holes in his shirt for some reason. Good enough.

That done, the first place he stopped was the travel stand inside the welcome center. He’d lost his wallet, but he still had a 20 dollar bill stuffed in his shoe, and he used it to buy a cheap camcorder and some gum. The store clerk eyed his ragged clothes and bloodied stumps suspiciously, but took his money all the same.

The camcorder came with batteries (thank god) and was too cheap to have an IR mode, which meant said batteries might actually last more than a handful of minutes. He tucked it into his pocket and unwrapped the chewing gum. In hindsight he should’ve gotten something to eat, but the camera hadn’t left him with enough for much more. At least it would give him the boost he needed to keep driving.

With the taste of mint in his mouth, he climbed back into the driver’s seat got back on the road.

**Wherearewegoingnow**

“Home, I guess. I gotta send an email.”


	5. 5

It took another hour to get back to the city. He parked the truck on the top floor of a parking garage with no intention of ever coming back for it, then started the long walk home to the apartment. The whole way he felt eyes drilling into him, and he checked himself a few times to make sure there was no black cloud swarming around him, waiting to lash out. Everyone he passed kept their distance, and he grit his teeth, hands shoved deep in his pockets. A few blocks later he realized it was probably because of the dirt and dried blood all over him, and almost laughed with relief.

His good mood lasted until reached his apartment complex and saw the elevator. It was an old model, not nearly as old as the ones at mount massive, but it had the same iron gates on the front. _It’s only a few floors up,_ he reasoned, _It would save time and I wouldn’t be in there very long._ He stood there for a solid minute before the walrider took over, walking him toward the stairs.

His hall was deserted, thankfully, no nosy neighbors to talk to, and the spare key was still wedged above the doorframe. But his hands kept shaking when he tried to unlock the door, and it took him four tries before he could jimmy the handle just right.

As soon as the door locked shut behind them a weight was lifted off of him, and he let himself sink down into a crouch, back still leaning heavily against the door. It was quiet in that familiar way, with the muffled sounds of his neighbors arguing or vacuuming, the honks and revving of cars on the streets below. Miles swallowed heavily, shoving his hands in his pockets. He felt the hard plastic of the camcorder he'd picked up at the rest stop, fished it out. Flipping it open, he did an experimental sweet of the apartment; not hard since most of it was visible from the front door.

“Uh, hi, I’m Miles Upshur and this is my place.” He panned from left to right. “Kitchen-slash-living room, bathroom, and back there’s the bedroom.”

**Whoareyoutalkingtomiles**

“Shh, I’m recording this for posterity. Or in case I ever go missing... Wait, they probably can’t hear you. Whoops.” He flipped the camera around. “My name is Miles and I’ve seen some shit.” He laughed, then flipped the camera off, then actually turned it off. Heaved himself to his feet. Kicked off his shoes.

There was a list, he remembered. And while he couldn't topple Murkoff right now, there was something he could do. He headed for the bathroom, making a point to avoid looking at himself in the mirror. “Get out,” he said, “I’m gonna shower.”

**Ialreadyknowhatyoulooklikenaked**

“Did not need to hear that. I would like some time alone with my body for a few minutes if you don’t mind.”

**Mileshangonthatismybodytooihavearightoashoweraswell**

“Out. Now.” With a pang of disappointment, it separated from him, standing in the doorway to stare forlornly in his direction. Miles figured that was the best he was going to get, and started stripping off his dirty clothes.

Stepping under the warm spray was probably the best thing he’d ever felt. As soon as he thought that, though, it made him think of food, and how good food would taste. And sleep. The only real sleep he’d gotten had been after being shot.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The walrider was still watching from the doorway. Miles didn’t want to look down. Carefully, he felt along his chest. Sure, he’d seen the wounds before, but now, with all the blood washed away, he couldn't stand to do more than run his fingers along the holes. They had clotted and scabbed over much faster than normal, but aside from that he didn’t think they were healing at a supernatural rate or anything like that. He would need antibiotics...

**MILES**

He came fully awake attention with a start. _Damn, guess I’m more tired than I thought._ Turning off the water, he stepped out, toweling down. The towel came away spotted with reddish brown, and he resolved to burn it, along with the rest of his clothes. Including his second-favorite jacket. Okay, he might have to keep that one, or at least say goodbye to it properly.

The walrider was still in the doorway, and Miles walked through it, nanites brushing past his skin like cold water. It was clear he was going to crash from exhaustion very soon, so he threw on an old, oversize t-shirt and headed into the kitchen to get something inside him. Solid food was out of the question, and so were energy drinks and alcohol, and he finally settled on cracking open an old can of soup (those don’t expire, right?) and nuking it in the microwave. To his disappointment, it was _not_ the best meal he’d ever tasted; in fact it tasted more like old tomatoes and metal. But he downed as much of it as he could anyway, before setting the rest aside to deal with tomorrow.

His journey to the bedroom was all on auto-pilot. He collapsed onto the bed with just enough presence of mind to think, _You better not kill anyone while I’m asleep,_ and he couldn’t be sure if he got an answer before he was out.

* * *

 

Miles woke drenched in sweat, heartbeat hammering in his chest. The alarm clock read 10:15, and late morning light filtered through the shades. He’d slept the rest of the day, and through the night, but still felt like he’d barely slept at all. Already his dreams were fading, but he got the distinct impression they involved a lot of running, the sound of Trager’s shears, Chris Walker’s heavy footsteps...

With a groan, he rolled over, reaching for his phone, but instead his hand hit something cylindrical. He blinked, realized he’d knocked over a bottle of pills. There were several on either side of it, all lined up in a row, painkillers and old antibiotics he’d never finished, even a bottle of—urg—rubbing alcohol.

Carefully, he sat up in bed. The previous day was a blur. Driving for hours, finally getting home so he could—

“Shit!” He launched himself out of bed, tripped, and collided shoulder-on with the doorframe. Rubbing his shoulder, he slowed down enough to watch his feet, heading into the main room.

The first thing he did was look around for the walrider, and for a panicked second he thought it had run off, but there it was, condensed into a crouch on top of the fridge. Well, at least it hadn’t destroyed anything.

“Did you leave those pills in your room?”

**Iknowyouwillnotseeadoctor. Ineedyoualivemiles**

He sighed. “Yeah, believe me, I’m trying. It’s number...” his eyes drifted to the camcorder. “Four on my list of things to do. _Stay alive._ And no, I _can’t_ see a doctor, because they ask questions, questions like ‘how are you alive with all those bullet holes?’ and ‘oh god what is that thing?’” Looking around, he spotted his laptop right where he’d left it, on his desk.

**Iknowthat** , it said, sounding almost petulant.

He flipped open his laptop, then groaned and got up to search around for his pants. Still bundled in the bathroom, storage card still in the pocket. His jacket pockets held the few documents he’d managed to fold small enough to take with him. The card itself felt.... weird to hold. His best weapon against Murkoff. He grabbed the documents too, cradling them in the crook of his elbow almost reverently. First the footage, that was the most important.

  * This file format is recognized by your media player. Do you want to play it? |



_No, I fucking don’t,_ he thought, but hit ‘yes’ anyway. He had to make sure.

The beginning was easy enough to handle, and he even smiled a bit at his own naivety. And then there was Chris throwing him through the window, Father Martin leaning over him, and the beginning of his mad rush through the halls. He thought it would be seeing Trager again that would make him have to stop, but he turned off the video long before that. It was hell, having to see himself struggling through it all over again, reliving it with no way of changing the outcome. _This will have to be good enough_ , he thought, and saved the file as IMPORTANT REPORTING FOOTAGE. Then he opened his e-mail client, looked at his untreated hands, and resigned himself to typing at maybe five words per minute, max.

 

> From: milesupshur@gmail.com
> 
> To: 10260110756@mutemail.com
> 
> Subject: Re: TIP / Illegal Activity at Murkoff Psychiatric Systems
> 
> I’m not sure if this email address even works anymore, but if it does, please watch the attached file. It’s video proof of your claims against Murkoff. Some of it may be hard to believe, but if you really were working there, you **will** believe it.
> 
> As a backup, I am including parts of some documents I recovered during my investigation, which should be damming enough proof themselves. Knowing Murkoff, though, maybe not.
> 
> If I don’t hear from you within a week, I will go public with this on my own.
> 
> Miles

 

He hit ‘send’ and sat back in his chair. It would have to be enough.


	6. 6

Before Miles could second-guess himself any more, he got up and wandered into the kitchen. The walrider had come down to hover behind him while he was typing, and now it continued to follow him like a weird homicidal shadow. 

His eyes caught on the soup he hadn’t bothered to put away the day before. It looked even less appetizing than it had before, but that was all right, because he wasn’t particularly hungry. That fact probably should have bothered him, but after the shitty night’s sleep he’d had, Miles was willing to take any small comforts he could get his hands on.

He dumped the soup and made himself something decent. Thankfully he hadn’t being gone long enough for anything in the fridge to go bad, and hopefully the walrider perching on it hadn’t messed it up somehow. It was watching him still, he knew without having to turn his head. Miles didn’t think he’d ever really get used to seeing himself from the outside, and focusing too hard on his second sight was making him very aware of the fact that he was still just wearing the long t-shirt he’d thrown on yesterday. But then the eggs were starting to burn, and he snapped back into his own eyes.

Using utensils with only three fingers (plus thumb)s was hard to get used to. His stumps were already starting to throb from how much he’d been using his hands, especially the one he’d used to punch the wall. Well, there was one more excuse not to use silverware, anyway.

After breakfast he headed into the bathroom to do some cleaning up. The clothes and towel went into a trashbag, and the pill bottles from the bedroom got brought back into the bathroom. Then it was time to clean himself up; first painkillers, then some carefully-applied antiseptic to his fingers and chest. His skin had regained some of its color at least, and his wounds were definitely scabbing over. 

When he came back to the living room, the ‘new message’ notification was blinking on his laptop.

_Already?_ No, it was probably just more promotional fliers or something. But he couldn’t help checking all the same.

 

> Miles!
> 
> I am so glad you’re okay. I’m sorry about everything that happened, I had no idea things were going to go as wrong as they did.
> 
> About your footage, thank you, but I have my own. I sent it all out last night to some people I can’t name, but I promise it’s in capable hands now.
> 
> But there are some things we should talk about. In person. Please let me know when you’re available and we’ll find somewhere to meet. I need to return your wallet and phone, too.
> 
> Waylon Park

 

Miles sat there, speechless. The whistleblower—Waylon—had taken matters into his own hands, gathered his own evidence. Everything he had done at Mount Massive, the fear, the pain, the....fingers...It had all been for nothing.

**Untrue**. The walrider nudged him. **Ifyouhadnotbeenthere, iwouldhavekilledhim.**

“Right. I guess so.” He tapped out a reply.

 

> Waylon,
> 
> I can give you my address, if you wanna meet at my apartment.
> 
> Also, what about my car???
> 
> Miles

 

After hitting send he closed the lid and slumped over on his desk. Without conscious effort, his eyes drooped closed, and he had a few precious moments of peace before the darkness turned to dreams, and dreams slid into nightmares.

A car horn blared somewhere outside, and sat bolt upright, heart still pounding. The clock said it’d been at least half an hour, even though he couldn’t sworn it was only a few minutes. “I’m never gonna get a decent night’s sleep, am I?”

**Itisunlikely** , the walrider said from somewhere to his left.

Miles groaned. “Shit, really? Great, should’ve figured it was something like that. At least you don’t sit on my chest while I sleep I guess.” He turned to meet its gaze. “Right? You don’t do that, do you?”

**...howoftendoyousleeponyourback?**

“On my back? I don’t know, I roll over a lot—wait, you didn’t answer my question!” He picked up the camcorder and pointed it at the walrider. “Okay, this is officially an interview of the weird things you may or may not do while I’m sleeping. What do you have to say for yourself?”

**Milesisustainmyselfonightmares. Youshouldknowthis.**

“Okay. I’ll let that one slide.” He shut off the camera. “So you’re like a dream vampire thing made of technology, okay. Just tell me you won’t suck the blood out of my nipples or some shit like that.”

It tilted its head. **Youhavelostoomuchbloodforthat.**

“I— _what?_ Is—is that a _joke_? Do you even understand what humor _is_?”

**Knock,knock** , it said. He opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by an honest-to-god knock at his door.

He jumped out of his chair, head whipping back between the walrider and the door.

“Right, fine, just, hide yourself, all right? Don’t wanna be freaking out my landlord for no reason.” It drifted off toward the bedroom, and Miles sighed, ran a hand through his hair, and unlocked the door.

The person standing in the hallway was _not_ his landlord. This guy was taller, for one thing, with wide eyes and blonde hair. Miles suddenly became very aware of the fact that he’d never changed out of the old t-shirt he’d slept in.

“Uh...I think you got the wrong place,” _buddy_ was on the tip of his tongue, but it twisted in his mouth into a drawn-out, “frrriend.”

“Miles Upshur?” Miles nodded. Debt collector? Somebody mistaking him for a PI, wanting to know if his wife was cheating on him? Repairman come to unclog his pipes—

“It’s me, Waylon. Um, Waylon Park. We, uh, never officially met, I guess.”

“Oh, shit.” Looking closer, he could imagine this guy in a patient’s uniform, covered in blood. “But I haven’t sent you my address yet, how are you even here?”

Waylon glanced down the hall. “Maybe we could talk about this inside?”

**Lethiminalreadymiles** , said the walrider, who’d drifted back into the living room.

“Yeah, okay. I mean, come in.” 


	7. 7

Miles stepped back into the apartment, and Waylon followed. His eyes went to his leg; he walked with a limp.

“Sorry for showing up so suddenly, I just wasn’t sure it was safe to discuss the details over e-mail, even with the security measures I’ve ta—“ He froze where he was, jaw still working, and Miles was somewhat guilty that his first thought was, _I have to get this on film._ That didn’t stop him from doing it, though, and he circled around to get a good shot of Waylon’s face as he locked eyes with the walrider. Or locked eyes-and-eyeless-skull.

“Remember the rules,” Miles admonished it, but didn’t feel any killing vibes coming from it, just somewhat sadistic glee. Good enough. He clapped a hand on Waylon’s shoulder. “You okay? Don’t worry, it’s not homicidal right now. Just likes messing with people.”

Waylon shrugged off his hand. “Right.” He pinched the bridge of his nose the way Miles’ mom used to do when she was getting a headache, then reached into his messenger bag and passed him a plastic bag that presumably had his stuff in it. “Sorry I took your car, I was in a hurry to get out of there. But I’m glad you found a way back on your own.”

“Right, my car! Do you have it?” It wasn’t the best vehicle, but it’d gotten him through some tough times. He’d even named it, although most of the time he just ended up calling it _come on you fucker_.

Glancing between him and the walrider, Waylon said, “About that...” Right then Miles knew it was going to be bad news. “That’s part of the reason I’m here. Murkoff will be looking for loose ends. A bright red car like that, it’s bound to attract attention. I had to make sure it was totaled. Don’t worry, though, I took your press pass out first.”

Miles groaned. “First my second-favorite jacket, now my car? What next, my fingers?” He held up his hands. “Oh, right.”

At the sight of his stumps, Waylon visibly paled. _Better not show him the bullet holes._ He reached down to tuck his hands into his pockets, then remembered he still wasn’t wearing pants. Before he could excuse himself, a pair of sweatpants hit him in the head. He pulled them on quickly, ignoring how Waylon was watching the walrider with wary confusion.

"How _did_ you get back?"

He wondered if Waylon thought the walrider had some kind of long-range teleporting ability, and how much easier that would have made the trip back. "Oh, I just stole a truck, no big deal." And maybe 'stole' was a stretch, but there hadn't exactly been any witnesses to say otherwise.

“Miles, you...disposed of the vehicle, right?”

“I, uh,” He scratched his arm. “I dumped it in a parking garage.”

“You—“ Waylon ran a hand through his hair. “Please tell me it was something inconspicuous.”

Biting his lip, Miles said, “Well, it’s probably okay, I mean the owner’s not gonna come looking for it or anything.” Eager to change the subject, he asked, “So how did you get here if you didn’t take my car?”

Waylon’s head snapped back to him. “Lisa—my wife—dropped me off.”

“You tell her why you had to visit a strange guy in his apartment?”

He nodded. “I told her everything.”

“Mmm,” Miles said. “And how’d she take that?”

“Not...great.” Waylon’s eyed his desk, landed on the camcorder Miles had set down while getting himself clothed. “Is that what you recorded the footage on?”

“Huh? Oh, no.” He picked it up, pointed it at Waylon. “That one was totally ruined. Even before it got smashed up, the cracked screen....” He trailed off. “Did you watch my footage?”

Waylon shuffled from foot to foot, not meeting the camera’s eye. “I didn’t think it would be fair. For me to know all about your experiences without you seeing mine.”

“Fair enough. Guess you must’ve seen some shit of your own then. Who exactly did you send that footage to?”

“I told you, I can’t—“

Miles shut off the camera. “Look, if Murkoff has some way of tracing this back to me I have a right to know.”

After a moment's hesitation, he nodded. “All right. But it’s complicated. They’re not like the FBI, they’re more...local. Not limited in scope to Colorado either, though.” He grimaced. “I know this is sounding more and more unbelievable.”

“So like The Shop or something?”

“The...what?”

“It’s from a book—okay, no, that’s pretty dated, it’s more like SCP, you know SCP?— Look, you don’t have to tell me the specifics, but we gotta coordinate somehow. Once it gets back to Murkoff that someone’s trying to ruin their day, they’re gonna start looking for leaks.”

Waylon nodded. “I agree, but you have to find a more secure email address. Really, gmail? And it’s your full name, I mean I know you’re trying to make your mark as a reporter but...” He pulled open Miles’ laptop.

“Hey, what’re you doing?”

His eyes remained fixed on the screen. “Setting up a more secure email for you. It’ll just take a moment, I wasn’t hired by Murkoff for nothing, you know.”

Resigned, Miles hovered at his side, eyes finally settling on the stuff Waylon had brought back with him. First things first, he plugged in his phone to charge and checked his messages. 10 texts from people wanting to know where he'd been, and did he want to get together on some day or other. No one seemed that bothered by his sudden radio silence, but it wasn’t exactly the first time he’d dropped off the grid in the name of investigative journalism.

Wallet... Still had all his money in it. Keys: apartment and car, the latter now useless. Press pass. The last time he’d seen it had been when he was testing his camera, right before entering Mount Massive Asylum.

The walrider had come to hover over his shoulder as he watched Waylon. **Hehastastedviolence** , it said. **Iwanthisdreams.**

“Oh my god...” Miles groaned quietly. “Can he hear you? Waylon, are you hearing this?”

But he didn’t look up from the screen for either of them.

“How did this guy even survive long enough to get to the exit?”

**Ifyouletmefeedonhisnightmares, icouldtellyou.**

Miles shook his head. “ _No._ Well, I guess it’s up to him. I can’t imagine he’d say yes, though.” If their positions were reversed, there was no way _he_ would sleep on a stranger’s couch so a murderous robot cloud could give him nightmares, not with a wife waiting for him at home. _More importantly,_ he thought at it, _keep anything you see to yourself. I don’t wanna know about it unless he feels like telling me._

 **Fine.** It reached out one spindly finger and brushed Waylon’s shoulder, and the man visibly shuddered and whipped his head around.

“Stop that,” Miles told it. “He’s doing something important.”

“Even if I wasn’t doing something important, please don’t do that,” Waylon said. But he kept glancing between Miles and the walrider, as though he wasn’t sure who he was saying it to.

It looked at Miles pleadingly, and he rubbed his face with his less injured hand. “Finish up with that, we’ll wait over here.” He walked over to sit at the kitchen table, stared hard at the walrider until it did the same. “We’ll talk when you’re done.”

Reluctantly, Waylon turned his back to them so he could face the computer. Somehow Miles just knew, by the slump of his shoulders, that the encounter had set him on edge. He wouldn’t be wouldn’t be immersed enough to hear them this time.

**Hehasbeenpreppedforthengine.**

Miles bit his lip, burning with curiosity. Waylon hadn’t turned around; he really couldn’t hear the walrider. _What does that mean?_ He asked finally.

**Hewasneverputinthengine, buthewasforcedtowatch.**

_Watch what?_

“Okay, done.” Waylon pushed himself out of the chair and walked toward them, stopping a respectable distance away. “Your account and password are randomly generated, I copied them down for you so you won’t forget. It should be safe to exchange information that way. You should also delete the email you sent me this morning, just to be safe.”

“Sure,” Miles said.

**Askhim.**

He shot an annoyed at the walrider.

Waylon was looking at him curiously. “What is it?”

**Askhimorletmeaskhim.**

“Uh, Waylon,” he said slowly. “On a scale of one to ten, how freaked out would you be if I let this thing possess me so it could talk to you?”

“Ten,” he said immediately. “No, sorry, reactionary response. Maybe a seven. Or a high six. Why,” he eyed the walrider warily, “what does it want to say to me?”

“I dunno man,” Miles lied. “Maybe it wants to say sorry.”

**Miles.**

He ignored it. “So whaddaya say?”

Waylon shrugged helplessly. “All right. But it...won’t control you, right?”

The walrider laughed. **Likeiwouldwanto.**

“No, I’d still be right there.” Waylon nodded, and he stood up and looked to the walrider. “Okay, let’s go.”

It phased into him, or maybe burrowed into him? It didn’t hurt, in any case, just gave him that numb feeling and the buzzing, not an audible sound but like a low-key vibration that moved through his skin, his hands, his eyelids.

They turned to face Waylon, who stood frozen, eyes wide and fixed on them. The last time he had seen them like this, they had been surrounded by a black cloud. Now, they stood before him with the walrider in its passive state, which looked pretty much the same.

“What,” he said, “Not what you were expecting?”

Waylon crooked half a smile. “Okay, that’s definitely Miles.”

 _You wanna try?_ He asked.

“ **Waylon.** ” It stopped, elated. “ **Waylon! Milesit’sworking!** ”

_Slow down a little he can’t understand you._

It tried again. “ **Hello. I am t h e w al ri d e r.** ”

 _Okay, that’s_ too _slow._

“H-Hello,” Waylon said. “I’m Waylon.”

“ **I kn ow.** ”

Miles snorted. The walrider clamped down on him, and he had the eerie feeling of being a spectator in his own body. He’d told Waylon it wouldn’t be in control, and it had said it didn’t want to, but this was new.

**Calmdownyoubaby. Ijustwant totalktohim.**

“What did you want to say to me?” Waylon was asking.

“ **Waylon I want I ne ed your help.** ”

He could already see the confusion written plainly on Waylon’s face. _You know what, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea._ "Need my help with what?"

“ **Pl ease have a se at.** ” It gestured toward the couch, and he sat down, reluctantly. “ **Lie down and clo se your eyes.** ”

“What? Why?”

“ **Because most humans sle ep that wa y.** ”

Waylon stared up at them, eyes very much open. “Y-you want me to sleep? Why?”

The walrider tilted Miles’ head, annoyed. “ **Do you wa nt to help Miles or no t?** ”

“For one thing, I haven't agreed to help you yet. And is it you who needs help, or Miles? I’m not going to do _anything_ on such vague terms.” He stood up, clutching his bag and backing toward the door. “What do you want from me? To finish what Murkoff started? It's over! Blaire is dead, the--the tapes are burned or rotting, and I don’t owe anything to you, and I’m sorry, Miles, but this is too much.”

They watched him grope for the knob, pulling the door open and slipping through the gap. His eyes never left them until he was out of sight.

The walrider had loosened its grip, seeming to deflate in the aftermath. Miles sucked in a breath, held it, let it out slowly. “Well, that could have gone better.” No response. “Guess we’ll be communicating exclusively through email from now on.” _Oh, and I’m supposed to delete that email I sent him..._ He sat down at the desk, but as soon as he touched the laptop it sparked ominously. “Damn it....Go do something else for a while, will you?”

The way it split from him was more violent than in the past, and when it was out he felt like his skin had been rubbed over with sandpaper. It was upset, Miles knew, but he wasn’t really sure why. Did it expect to be good with people, with only its limited experiences within the Engine and Miles’ interactions to guide it? Or maybe disappointed that it couldn’t lessen the burden on its host? The possibility that it might be trying to protect him was almost ridiculous, and even as he dismissed it, he felt a twisting in his gut at the thought.

He thought about typing up an email to Waylon to test his new, supposedly secure and untraceable account, any maybe try to explain what the walrider had been trying to say. But, seeing how he’d reacted, it just seemed too much to ask of him.

The whistleblower. Miles’d had nothing to lose and everything to gain when he drove up to Mount Massive, or at least that’s what he’d thought. But Waylon had been in a good position with Murkoff, one that probably paid well, not to mention a wife. He’d risked everything to expose the company’s wrongdoings.

For a while he just sat there, staring at the cursor as it blinked up at him from the empty message body. Finally he typed out,

 

> Waylon,
> 
> Sorry about what happened. Walrider not so good at talking to people. It wasn't trying to hurt you though. I won’t let it.
> 
> Hoping you’ll still keep me updated. Not sure what I’m gonna do yet. Forgot to ask if you can still keep tabs on what M is up to. I have a feeling they’re not sitting quietly.
> 
> Miles

 

At least, he thought, he was getting better at typing with eight fingers.


	8. 8

That night he found a neat row of aspirin laid out on his bedside table. He glanced around curiously, but the walrider had been skulking away from him all day. Was this a peace offering? A threat?

Lacking the patience to figure out which, he swallowed them down (the damn thing had even left a glass of water with the pills) and crawled into bed.

* * *

 

_Somewhere in the distance, a church hymn was playing. It echoed through the dusty halls in waves, rising in volume, then falling, like the sound itself was stalking through the asylum. And just beneath it, never quite understandable, voices. Voices and sounds, metal on metal, like a knife being sharpened, or maybe chains rattling against each other._

_The floor creaked under him as he took a step. When he turned his head, he could see rain pounding at the windows, but it made no sound. Just that low drumbeat that sounded like it belonged in a[Zeppelin song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbrjRKB586s). And under that, nearly drowned out by the other sounds, he could hear something pounding on the door at the end of the hallway. _

_He turned around. Behind him was a barricade of wreckage, file cabinets and desks and pieces of medical equipment, the kind of barrier that he would normally try to find a way around, because there was no chance of getting through it. But now, there was nowhere else to go, just the long hallway and the door at its end. And on the other side was..._

_The wood split. It would only take another few hits before it—whatever it was—would be through. He dove for the barricade, trying first to squeeze through a gap at the bottom. But the farther in he got, the harder it was to move, and the other side seemed to shrink away with every inch of progress. He knew he wasn’t going to make it, and, swallowing heavily, he began to crawl backwards the way he had come._

_His head breached the barricade just as the door gave a last splintering shudder and collapsed. Heartbeat rushing in his ears, he forced himself to start climbing without looking back. Jagged wood and jutting chair legs barred his path, but he could just make out a gap between the barricade and the ceiling, if he could just get to it..._

_Something caught on his pant leg, and he shook it violently, hearing the fabric tear as something sharp sliced his skin. He pushed onward. The top half of his body was through the gap, he was going to make it, and—oh. A strong hand closed around his ankle, and_ pulled. _The world spun sickeningly and he twisted sideways, upside down. He caught a glimpse of heavy stitches crisscrossing its body, a body with Chris’ strong build, Father Martin’s fervent eyes, Trager’s scissors clasped firmly in its free hand. His own hands scrabbled feebly at something, anything, but touched on nothing, not even the floor. Where was his camera? This wasn’t right, how had he—_

_The scissors slid apart with the tiniest sound of metal-on-metal, and Miles gave in and let himself scream._

* * *

 

_He was...He was standing in front of the dumbwaiter, fuses in one hand, camera in the other. Someone was banging and mumbling behind him, but he knew he was safe, for now. And there in front of him was the key he needed. He slotted the fuses in one by one, then slammed his hand down on the control panel. It shuddered and groaned to life, then went silent. He tried again. And again._

_No, this wasn’t how it went, this hadn’t happened! The key was supposed to fall—and then—he was supposed to down and get it..._

_“Hold up there, buddy!”_

_No. No no no no, Trager was dead, this wasn’t happening—He vaulted over the counter, running full tilt through the twisting halls, Trager’s voice behind him, and the pounding and screaming of the other variants all around him. And yet he hadn’t seen any of them yet, hadn’t seen a single damn thing organic since the body in the laundry chute, no blood, no body parts or brain matter, just the dirty halls and the_ sounds. _The pounding music had started again at the lower threshold of his hearing, not just drums but a wailing voice._

Cryin' won't help you, prayin' won't do you no good....

_He reached the elevator, but had no key. He tried the metal gate to the upper stairwell, but had no key for that, either. All that was left was to wait, or to go back down._

_Before he could make the decision, Trager caught up to him, standing between him and the only path to escape. Something about him looked broken, like a wound-up toy, but he still had that clear, sneering voice when he said, “There y’are, you little quitter.”_

_Miles froze. He looked at his hands. All 10 fingers. Trager was alive and was going to cut off his fingers. NO, he couldn’t go through that again. The pain already blazed sick and hot on his tongue as he backed himself against the metal gate. And all the while Robert Plant was howling,_ All last, night sat on the levee and moaned... All last, night sat on the levee and moaned...Thinkin ‘bout my baby and my happy home....

* * *

 

His eyes snapped open, struggling blindly before he could even register where he was. Bedroom? A thin orange streetlight filtered in through the blinds, and pinning him to the bed was the pitch black shape of the walrider. He gasped, choking on his own spit. It wasn’t allowed to hurt him—? Was he still dreaming?

**Go back to sleep**

No, that was exactly what he _didn’t_ want to do, but he couldn’t speak, just wheezed pitifully as his lungs struggled against the weight pressing down on his chest. His vision filled with dancing spots of unreal color, and he had enough time to think _oh shit, I’m dying, they’re gonna find me choked to death in bed and say I died of autoerotic asphyxiation...._

* * *

 

Something was irritating him. It took a long time to figure out what, because just pulling himself together was a heavy effort. There was a light flashing on and off somewhere in front of his eyelids.

When his senses had started working enough for him to register his surroundings, he realized it was the light on his phone blinking. _Who the hell is messaging me at this hour?_ He glanced at the clock, which read quarter of eleven. Okay, so it wasn't that early, but he knew his most of coworkers were only morning people when they absolutely had to be.

> **Cindy:** Hey dude, some guy from Murkoff was poking his nose around my office, what did you do to piss them off?
> 
> **Miles:** Nothin
> 
> **Cindy:** Seriously tell me what you did I don’t want them coming back here
> 
> **Cindy:** They’re scaring off my business.
> 
> **Miles:** i pulled their pigtails in class n now they think i like them

He tossed the phone on the bed and stood up, stretching. After he’d passed out he hadn’t dreamed again, thankfully. But his body still felt like shit. And to top it all off, Murkoff was looking for him.

_Least they don’t know for sure it was me,_ he thought as he shuffled down the hall.

He looked to his left. The walrider sat on the floor with its back against the couch, reading. Somehow it had gotten into his trunk and pulled all the books out, leaving a messy pile in the middle of the room. Stacked in front of it were all the books Miles had never gotten around to reading. At least it wasn’t on top of the fridge again.

To his right, on the kitchen table, was a bowl of soggy cereal and a plate of toast—or rather, the whole toaster, ripped from the wall by the look of it, with the incinerated toast still inside.

“What’s all this?” he asked. His throat felt like it was full of leaves.

**Breakfast.**

“What happened to the toaster?”

**I overpowered it. And the television.**

He sighed through his teeth. “Please, _please_ tell me you left the laptop alone.”

**Yes.**

Miles let the relief flood him. That was one thing to be thankful for, anyway. He ate the cereal (with a soup spoon) and picked at the few non-burnt patches on the toast. It took longer than it should have to finish eating; he kept glancing at the walrider, even though he knew it was just reading, could _see_ through its eyes that it was reading. But his mind kept drifting back to waking up in the dark with it smothering him, and by the time he finished, his hands were shaking.

Finally he cleared his throat. “That gonna happen every night from now on?”

It looked up at him for the first time all morning. **No. If I feed this way, I can feed less often. Most nights you will be able to rest. But I will not give you any warning in the future.**

Warning, huh? “Those pain pills...those were to keep me asleep?”

He felt rather than heard its confirmation. **They did not work as well as I had hoped.**

“So next time, what, will you drug my dinner?”

It stared levelly at him with its eyeless face. **Next time I will force you back to sleep. As many times as it takes.**

Its words sank in, making Miles cold all over. The thought of going through that again, maybe multiple times in one night, made him consider moving _#3: Look into the walrider problem_ up to the top of the list. But there was only one way he knew how to do that, and it would put an end to everything else on that list, too.

No, he _could_ do this. As many times as it took to stay alive. And he understood why the walrider had wanted Waylon to help lighten the load—or maybe it just wanted to taste fresh fear, who knew. Maybe it was doing all this to make him hate it, so it could feed on that, too.

**I would not hurt you if I did not have to,** it said. It had stopped reading at some point and stood up, though it didn’t approach.

Miles didn’t know if he believed that. He tried to laugh, almost succeeded. “Lemme ask you something. Why don’t you ever use contractions?”

It cocked its head, and he felt a rush of satisfaction at its surprise. **They are...inelegant.**

“Too bad you’re stuck with me then, huh?” He breezed through the room, passing it on his way to fling himself down on the couch. “I’m all about inelegant.”

**But you know what I am and where I came from. It would be a pain to look for a new host and have to explain everything to them.** It considered for a moment. **Although there _is_ Waylon...**

“Don’t even,” Miles said, then sat up with a start. _Shit, I haven’t told him yet._ He stumbled over to the computer and checked his email, but still no word. Well, not that he’d really expected one, after not getting a response all day yesterday.

 

> Waylon,
> 
> Murkoff is looking for me. Don’t think they know I’m involved yet, or I wouldn’t be typing this rn. But I might have to go into hiding, don’t know where yet. Please respond.
> 
> Miles

 

He checked his phone again. Cindy had sent him another annoyed text, but it lacked the urgency of the first few. Still, he started thinking of what he needed to pack, if he really did have to go. Clothes. His goddamn jacket that he still hadn’t gotten rid of, because if he was going to be in danger anyway he might as well look stylish, and maybe feel just a little bit of comfort from going through another tough time with an old friend. Money this time, for sure. Books for the walrider, since it got bored easily and obviously couldn’t use a computer. First aid kit.

And...where would he go? South, maybe, to Denver? Get lost in the city? Or northwest, towards the mountains, get seriously lost in the wilderness? Without a car, too. But he could pack a bag at least. That would be the smart thing to do.

Instead he sat at his computer a while longer, halfheartedly hoping for a reply from Waylon. He was feeling restless and more than a little trapped, in part because he hadn’t left his apartment since getting home. But he didn’t know how much distance he could put between himself and the walrider, and he definitely didn’t want it merging with him any time soon. So he did what he always did when he was holed up working on something, and enjoyed himself vicariously through his friends.

None of them were surprised to hear him asking what they were up to after days of no contact, since that was his usual M.O. most days. Many of them were other journalists anyway, even a few investigators, who all had more interesting things to look into than a few days of no Miles Upshur.

**The mountains,** the walrider said suddenly. **I can protect you there.**

_Yeah, but protect me from what?_ he thought, not really wanting an answer. He could already imagine Murkoff sending wave after wave, first undercover campers, then investigators, then kill teams, helicopters. Striking them down one after another. Bodies of the dead piling up like a barricade. The thought made his stomach turn, but so did most things this morning. He didn’t have much hope for his toast and cereal staying down, that was for sure.

“I’m not saying no,” he allowed, “But there’s got to be a better solution.” And though he didn’t want to consider it, with more people around, maybe it could find someone else to feed off of, just a little bit, just to lessen the pressure a little...

He checked his phone, remembered he still hadn’t replied to Cindy.

> **Miles** : Im done messing with Murkoff. They can keep their business the hell away from me. Tell them that if they come back again.

It was somewhat true. He wouldn’t be launching any more official investigations with Murkoff as the subject, but that was because he knew the kind of things they were up to, knew it well enough not to bother trying to report it. If Waylon’s SCP guys, as he had come to think of them, came through that was one thing.

And if Miles decided to try looking into their other research bases and maybe put a stop to whatever they were doing....well, that was another thing. It wasn't like he was looking for danger. But he had this stray thought at the back of his head that kept poking at him: what if there were more things like the walrider out there? What if this time their use as weapons was perfected?

He rubbed his eyes. There were just too many factors, and factoring was one thing he’d never been good at. He’d turn his concerns over to Waylon, if the man ever spoke to him again.

His email pinged.


	9. 9

 

 

> Miles,
> 
> Don’t run. If you run they’ll know for sure. Stay put for now. I’ll contact you again soon.
> 
> Waylon

 

“Great, just what I wanted to hear.” He pushed back from the desk, eyes catching on the camcorder, and remembered something he’d decided to do since he'd seen it on display at the rest stop.

Carefully, he turned it on and set it down on the desk, flipping the viewscreen around so he could see himself as he filmed.

“This is Miles. I guess I’m documenting my experiences as a host for the walrider, in case...well, in case the worst happens. I could fool myself and say it was for personal reference, but what’s the chance I’m gonna forget this stuff, when it’s constantly happening to me?

"So if you’re watching this, congratulations on your new walrider, and possibly your new lease on life, not sure how that works yet. Hope you like a little excitement.”

 **Miles you know if I get a new host I can just tell them things.** It had come up behind him when he started talking and was just kind of standing--floating?--there, watching.

“Yeah but you won’t tell them anything, will you?” He craned his head around. “That’s not your style.”

**I would tell them enough.**

“Enough, yeah.” He turned back to the camera. “Don’t let it trick you into thinking it’s told you everything it knows. It’s always gonna know more than you. And it can read your thoughts, so that’s fun.”

His phone beeped, and he turned the camera off to check it. _Stay put,_ Waylon had said. Easy for him, he wasn’t the one stuck at home. Miles resolved to get out of the house as soon as the opportunity arose, even if it turned out to be because he was on the run from Murkoff. Even if it meant sneaking in and out of his own damn apartment.

He trudged into the bedroom, rummaged around until he found his old duffel, then grabbed some clothes dumped them in. When he got back to the living room the walrider had coalesced on the ceiling and was just kind of floating there.

“What are you doing?” he asked. “Besides making me dizzy.”

**Stretching.**

“And why do you have to do that on the ceiling?”

**Because I can.**

Rolling his eyes, Miles set the duffle down by the desk and slumped into the chair. Even if he couldn’t go out, he could at least find out what was happening with the rest of the world. Who knows, maybe he’d even get some done paperwork that he’d been putting off.

His gaze slid to the documents he’d recovered from Mount Massive, still sitting on the desk from when he’d scanned them to send to Waylon. Or maybe there was something he was missing, some clue that would slot everything about the whole mess into place.

He spent most of the day poring over the documents, making notes when he needed to, looking over the words so many times he couldn’t even remember which rooms he’d found which papers in. For the most part, anyway.

Occasionally he’d glance at his email, but his mind was always turned toward his work. Just like when Waylon had first sent him that tip; it was like the past few days had fallen away and here he was again, the same as if it had been a normal case. The same procedures, anyway, for the most part: cross-check names, places, key phrases. Except the stuff about the walrider. But occasionally in his research he’d see the symbol for the Walrider Project, that weird knot with the balls on it. A celtic knot? That was a safe enough search, and there it was. Some versions had a circle around or behind it, and none of them had the three balls, but it was basically the same.

“Trinity, huh?” he muttered.  Mind, body, spirit. Though in this case it would be more like nightmare, nanites, and the Engine. And look, it was right there under the list of meanings, kind of. Creator, Destroyer, Sustainer. Sounded about right.

A cold hand grasped his shoulder. **Stop and eat something. You are still weak.**

“Nah, I’m not really hungry, I’ll stop in a while.” He glanced at the clock, was startled to realize hours had passed.

The walrider’s grip tightened. **You will eat or I will take control and make you eat.**

That got his attention. He hadn’t even let it ride shotgun since the nightmare, and the idea of it doing so now, whether he wanted it to or now...

“All right, already.”

He ate in silence while it watched. Somewhere along the line the sky had gone dark, and he rubbed his eyes, wondering when they’d started to feel strained. Worst of all, it was bringing on a headache, the kind that formed at the back of the eyes. Well, not _worst_. The worst was knowing he’d have to sleep soon, and not knowing what fun and new problems that would bring.

A quick shower, and then he went to bed. The last he’d seen the walrider, it had been reading in the living room still. Good. Although he wasn’t expecting it to feed off him two nights in a row, he was still a little relieved it wasn’t hanging over him.

* * *

 

 _This time he was the one doing the chasing, trying with everything he had to catch up to Waylon, all the while shouting at him to come back. But Waylon ran from him just as Miles had run so many times before. They ran through the men’s ward, the screaming of variants echoing through the halls, and as Waylon skidded to a halt in front of the dumbwaiter, Miles_ knew _what was going to happen._

_He lunged forward with the last of his strength, but his hands closed around the chicken wire of the closed hatch. For a slow second he caught a glimpse of Waylon’s terrified face, and their eyes locked. Then he was gone, and Miles collapsed to his knees, defeated._

_But that wasn’t the end of it._

_Strong hands came down on him forcing his face up against the hatch. He twisted and fought as he waited for a knife to the back, for his neck to bend until it broke, but nothing happened. Eventually he stopped struggling. And that was when the screaming started echoing down from above._

* * *

 

He dropped back into his body with a strangled gasp. The walrider was holding him down again, but he couldn’t go back to that, not again. He opened his mouth to scream, but it clamped a heavy hand down over his mouth just in time. But it could still hear his thoughts, and he screamed there, a loud mantra of _no no no nononoNONONO!_

Maybe he really did pass out, because the next thing he knew, he was no longer being restrained. It had finally relented, and he lay on his side, breathing heavily, its presence draped over him like a cold blanket.

“It won’t get any easier, will it?” His voice sounded rough and loud in the stuffy air of the bedroom. “It has to be that bad, every time, for you to get what you need out of it.”

**Yes,**

It was the answer he’d been expecting, and the confirmation drained what little energy he had left. He lay there without moving, heart still beating a mile a minute, knowing he wasn’t going to be getting back to sleep any time soon.

 **I’m sorry.** Its voice was quiet, and even though it was in his mind, it sounded physically close to his ear. Sounded like, hundreds of tiny whispers, sounded like...

“You sound like two horses,” he mumbled blearily.

It made a choking sound. **Miles I swear if you make one of your internet jokes at me again I will find a new host.**

“Hey, I’ve gotta cope somehow.”

 **I’m sorry,** it said again. It squeezed his arm in imitation of a comforting gesture, and Miles let his eyes slide shut.


	10. 10

Someone was knocking on his front door. Well, more like pounding on it. He groaned and rolled over, then scowled as he realized he’d turned his head toward a patch of sunlight. The walrider was in the living room, and he watched as it got up and floated over to the door to peer through the peephole.

**It’s Waylon.**

_Yeah, I can see that._ “Let ‘im in,” he said, pushing himself into a sitting position. “I’ll be out in a sec.”

He pulled some clothes on, then saw his jacket hanging on the doorknob and pulled that on, too. Thanks to his connection with the walrider, he didn’t even have to hurry to see the expression of shock on Waylon’s face when it greeted him at the door.

“You gotta stop showing up without warning, dude.”

Waylon stiffly stepped past the walrider. “This is urgent—“ He stopped. “Miles, you look like shit.”

He shrugged, spread his arms out. “Didn’t really sleep well last night.” Speaking of which, he cast a glance at the kitchen table. “No breakfast this morning?”

**Did you want cold cereal again? Maybe a cold pop tart?**

“Well sorry I don’t have an open flame for you to play around with. See, this is the kind of thing we need to put in the videos.” He walked over to the counter and plugged in the toaster. Poptarts were sounding good right about now.

“What videos?” Waylon asked from behind him.

Miles straightened, shoved his hands in his pockets, before turning around. “Home movies,” he said, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why the words tasted sour in his mouth. “For research purposes. It’s easier than trying to write it all out. I’m just trying to figure out the rules for all this stuff.” He shrugged. “Anyway, why are you here? If I’m being watched, what about you?”

“That’s why I’m here. Miles, we have to get out. Now.” Waylon looked at him expectantly, and when he didn’t respond, continued, “I don’t know what happened, but I’ve been monitoring Murkoff's systems and there’s suddenly a lot more activity than there should be. The kinds of things I’m seeing... requisitions, marching orders, it’s not good. And I can’t think of anyone else they would be going after except one of us, and I don’t know which one of us, so I thought...Anyway, Lisa’s outside with the van. Miles, are you listening?”

He blinked the spots out of his eyes, cleared his throat. “Yeah. Okay, let’s go.” The duffle was where he’d left it by the desk, and he scooped up the documents and put those in, too. Then the camcorder. “You want books?” It was already holding a stack of paperbacks in a way that was non-negotiable. “Take your time reading those, we won’t be stopping to get more.” At least he hoped so. Just keep running, right? That was the plan?

**Do not baby me, Miles.**

“Yeah, yeah...” He reached out for anything he might be missing, remembered his research, and carefully nestled his laptop in the bundle of clothes. “Oh! Batteries.” There were a handful in the top drawer, and he shoved the whole baggie into his duffle. In the kitchen, the toaster pinged.

Consumables. Non-perishables. He shoved a poptart in his mouth, grabbing things as he went. Soup cans, soda bottles, it all went in. It pissed him off how yesterday he thought he’d been ready for everything, and now here was the real deal, and he was wasting time trying to remember trivial things like food.

“Uh, Miles? We have food...”

Miles wheeled around, looking Waylon up and down. Good analytical skills, but the limp would slow them down if they had to run on foot. Plus the wife and...kids? Did he say he had some of those? Hopefully not with him, that would _really_ slow them down.

A cold wave washed over him as the walrider took over. His shaking stopped, which made him realize he’d been shaking for a while. Before he could protest, it said, **I did not want to have to do this, but you are panicking. He won’t let us go with him if you say those things you were thinking.** It sighed. **Honestly, I should not be the one having to explain this. Do not worry. I will make sure you are safe. Just focus on becoming calm.**

Waylon was staring at them. “Miles? Er...Walrider?”

“ **We are ready to go.** ”

“O-okay. The van’s parked around the corner.”

The walrider grabbed the duffle, walked their body out the door. Miles tried to follow its advice and calm down, but his thoughts were wound up so tight he wanted to sob. This was all happening too soon, he’d just escaped Murkoff and now he had to do it again.

But, he reminded himself, this time he didn’t have to do it alone.

Waylon pointed them toward a maroon van idling on the shoulder, and slid in the passenger side. The driver side window rolled down, and a woman who Miles assumed was Lisa stuck her elbow out. She...wow. She had strong arms. _What the hell, Waylon?_ How the hell did he end up with a lady who was the very definition of tall dark and gorgeous?

“Get in the back. Your bag stays with you.”

He was still staring as the walrider moved his body forward, and they climbed into the back seat and the van jerked away from the curb. Waylon was already poring over maps—paper ones, not even electronic. Maybe they really were going off the grid. Something moved behind him, and the walrider turned them around to look. Two boys sat in the booth-style seat behind them, eight and ten, maybe. The younger one was slumped over, asleep, head pressed into a rolled-up sleeping bag. The other was watching him warily. The walrider gave him a small wave.

_What the hell are you doing?_

**True, being nice is a little out of character for Miles Upshur.** **Are you feeling calmer yet?**

_Yeah, think so, anyway._

It let go of him and sank back, tucking itself in the way it had done on the walk to the apartment. Only a few days ago. Felt like longer.

“Where are we going?” he asked. The murmuring from the front seats stopped. _Whoops, guess I interrupted something._

“It’s better if you don’t know,” Lisa said, and Waylon shot him an apologetic look.

He nodded, looked down at the duffle sitting heavily on his lap. _Shit._ “I forgot the first aid kit.”

“We have one.”

“Right.”

The walrider was laughing softly between his ears.

 _Do you think she knows?_ He asked it. _Waylon said he told her everything, but..._

**She knows. She may not show it, but she is afraid of you.**

_Afraid of_ you _, you mean._

**To her it makes no difference.**

Behind them, the sleeping boy stirred, yawning loudly and mumbling something to his brother. They had a muted conversation which Miles forced himself not to listen to.

Instead, he leaned his elbow on the armrest and stared out the window. “It’s cold,” he complained into his hand.

Waylon cast him a questioning look. “Sorry, what was that?”

It probably _wasn’t_ cold, just the way the walrider was wrapped around him, so he said, “It’s noting,” at the same time one of the boys leaned forward and said loudly, “He says he’s cold!” Miles turned around to glare at him. It was the one with cropped, curly hair—younger one? He probably hadn’t been around when his parents explained how dangerous and unstable the strange man was. “What? You _did_.”

From the front seat Waylon mumbled something about how windy it was for the season, and cranked the heat up one notch. They drove on.


	11. 11

Miles caught himself leaning his head against the window. They’d been heading south for a while now, but he wasn’t sure yet whether they were going to turn east toward Denver, or veer west towards the mountains. So the walrider might get its way after all, he supposed. When they finally turned east, he let out the breath he’d been holding for the past few miles.

His mind turned back to his research. He couldn’t use his laptop, not with the walrider’s tendency to ‘overpower’ technology, but the thoughts still kept turning over and over in his head. The triquetra. The underground labs. There must have been more wings of the building he hadn’t even seen. Had none of the staff survived?

**No.**

_But—_

**I killed many of them under Billy Hope’s control. The rest were killed by their patients, the very ‘variants’ they themselves created.**

Miles supposed he’d already known that. But still, one name kept coming up in his searches, the project head, Jeremy Blaire. If he could just—

 **Blaire is dead,** the walrider said. **Waylon told you that already.**

_Right. ‘Blaire is dead, I don’t owe you anything, etc, etc.’_

It sighed. **Try to get some rest. No dreams. I promise.**

He didn’t think he’d be able to sleep, but the next thing he knew was the van engine shutting off and Waylon tapping him on the shoulder. The walrider had been right; he hadn’t dreamed.

They were stopped in front of a shitty motel on the outskirts of Denver. The boys were already eagerly pushing past him to get a look at the place, and Miles carefully slipped out after them. After a moment he fished out his camcorder and panned around a little bit. He zoomed in on Waylon’s back as he walked down to the front desk to check in, then jumped as Lisa stepped in front of the camera.

“I understand you’ve been through some hard times,” she said after he pulled the camera down. “But I don’t know you, and Waylon barely knows you. If you do anything to jeopardize our safety, I will make sure you accidentally get left behind. Clear?”

 **Knife** , the walrider said, and he looked down. Her hand was in her coat pocket and he thought it was probably right. He nodded heavily.

“Sure thing,” he said.

She jerked her head behind her. “Go on with Waylon. I’m gonna bring the car around.”

Shouldering his duffle, he wandered over just as Waylon was finishing up, and was handed a keycard.

“We gotta talk,” Miles told him.

Waylon cringed a little. “I know, I’m going to take the kids to the room and drop off some stuff, let’s talk after that.”

The room was typical of a motel. It sat at the end of a long hall. Hall door one one side, sliding doors on the other. TV. Two beds. Miles assumed he’d be sleeping on the floor.

_-ifidontsleeptheycanthurtme...._

He shook his head. Maybe he should’ve listened to the variants more closely. Or blocked them out entirely.

Around him, the boys were looking around excitedly. Of course. To kids, it must seem like a mini-vacation. Well, after a week or so they’d feel differently. _If we stay a week, that is._ He dumped his stuff in the corner, slid one of the back doors open, and then stepped through .

It was only mid-afternoon outside. The weather was too warm for snow, too cold for the summer crowd, and the lot outside was nearly empty. He tested his weight on one of the plastic chairs, then collapsed into it. Maybe he could actually manage to catch up on some more sleep while waiting for Waylon. His head was beginning to hurt, most likely from so much time mashed together with the walrider. Had it happened when he was driving back from Mount Massive? He couldn’t remember. Everything had hurt at the time. That was one thing he was thankful for, not having to feel the pain as strongly as he knew he should be.

The door slid open, and Waylon stepped out, closing it behind him.

“Before you say anything,” he started, “I’m sorry about Lisa. It took some convincing to bring her around. You can’t really know what it’s like unless you’ve seen it, and I won’t let her watch the footage.”

Miles nodded. “Good call.” He rubbed his eyes, wished he’d brought sunglasses. Was the sun brighter than usual?

“You look worse than you did the day after Mount Massive,” Waylon said with a wry shake of his head.

“Nah. I feel a whole lot better, considering.”

Waylon was staring at him. “...Whatever it wanted to do to me, it did it to you instead, didn’t it?”

He shook his head. “Not instead of, it would’ve done it anyway. Don’t worry about it.” But Waylon was still looking at him, eyebrows scrunched up, and Miles scowled. “You’re too soft man, seriously, you went through hell, take care of yourself for once.”

 **Unless,** the walrider whispered.

“If I really need your help, I’ll ask for it. Not the walrider. Me. So seriously, just relax.”

Looking not at all relaxed, Waylon said, “Okay.” He glanced inside. “Lisa will be out soon, is there anything you want to talk about that might be...sensitive?”

Miles snorted. “You make it sound way worse than it is. But yeah, I guess there’s some things I wanna ask you.” He let Waylon stew on that for a few seconds. “How much have you told her about me and the walrider?”

“I told her what I knew, but I’m not sure how much she believed it. It does sound a little hard to believe without actually experiencing it, and I’d rather you didn’t...y'know." He waved his fingers around in a decent imitation of the walrider. "Not around Lisa or the kids.” He locked eyes with Miles, then looked down at his feet. “If you can, I mean. If you can make it see reason.”

He resisted the urge to snort again, but couldn’t keep from saying, “Believe me, it’s the more reasonable of the two of us.”

Waylon frowned. “Don’t humanize it like that. It’s vicious, dangerous, it’s the _Walrider_ , the thing we fought to put a stop to!”

 **He is afraid of me,** it said.

“I know you’re still afraid of it. But its main priority is to keep its host alive, and it knows my best chance of staying alive is if I’m with you. It’s not gonna hurt you, cause it knows if it does I’ll leave and probably be up shit creek. But it feeds on fear, so the more you give it the more it’s gonna try and get more.”

 **Stop giving me less to work with,** it grumbled. **I would prefer to make things easier on you, if you would let me.**

_No. Not yet. Not until we have to._

**Fine. But we _both_ decide when that time has come. **

Heedless to their silent conversation, Waylon was smiling at Lisa through the door. Miles jumped up, grabbing the handle to hold it closed. “Wait. One more question.” He shot Lisa an apologetic look before turning back to Waylon. Lowering his voice, he said, “The walrider said you were prepped for the engine. What did it mean?”

His words made Waylon shrink back. He glanced at Lisa, standing with arms folded, watching them through the glass. “After they caught me sending the message. I was admitted as a patient. Taken to an exam room. And forced to watch a series of images. The images, the—the therapy. That’s what does the real damage; being put in the engine is invasive and traumatic, sure, but it’s what you see beforehand that makes you want to claw your eyes out.

“But luckily for me the walrider went berserk and killed the doctors before too much damage had been done. So. Is that what you wanted to know?”

Miles straightened. “Yeah,” he said, but it came out so quiet he wasn’t sure if Waylon had heard him. Louder, he said, “I think I saw some of it, too. Rorschach blots. Moving shapes.” _5 4 All researchers must avert their eyes 3 2 1_ “Sorry. Sometimes I just... _have_ to know things.”

Waylon sighed, shook his head. “I know. That’s why I sent you the message in the first place.”

He let go of the door handle, and Lisa joined them outside. “So? What’d I miss? Or am I not supposed to know?”

He caught Waylon’s eye, scrunched up his face and shrugged. _It’s up to you, man._

“Nothing,” Waylon said finally. “Just some catching-up.” It made Miles’ hand ache for his camera, made him remember something which had been eating at him since yesterday, something he didn’t want to ask in front of Lisa. He bit his lower lip, and the damn thing was so chapped it started to bleed.

“What’d you tell your kids about me?” he asked. “Just so I can keep the story straight.”

“You’re a friend of Waylon’s from his college days,” Lisa told him. “You just got out of the hospital, and you need a vacation. I told them not to pester you about it, but with Ace’s curiosity, he just might go and do it anyway.”

“....Which one is which again?”

Waylon sighed. “The younger one is Ace. _Not_ short for Acer, before you even ask.”

He hadn’t been going to ask, but the man’s words made Miles want to needle him a little. “Be funny if he grew up to be asexual, huh?”

Waylon frowned at him, but he caught the corners of Lisa’s mouth turn up, as though she’d thought the same thing.

“Our oldest is Cas, which he will insist is short for Castiel.”

“What _is_ it short for?”

“Cassandra,” Lisa said, staring him down.

Miles snorted.  _Yeah, I'd say that's an improvement._ “Kid wants to be an angel, huh? How old is he again?”

This time it was Lisa who frowned at him, while Waylon crossed and crisscrossed his fingers and said, “It’s all those supernatural shows, he’s really too young to be watching them, but Lisa says eleven is old enough...”

“Not the point. You keep your....” she wiggled her fingers at him, just as Waylon had done minutes before. “—away from my boys, understand?”

He gave her his best salute. “Clear as crystal.” Had just enough self-restraint not to say, _I’d keep it away from everyone if I could._


	12. 12

Just as Lisa had said, not long after he’d come back inside, Ace approached him. Lisa was in the shower, Waylon on his laptop, and the two kids had been playing some handheld video game for the past couple of hours, but Cas was now absorbed in whatever was on TV. Miles himself was lying on the sleeping bag they’d pulled out for him, staring up at the ceiling through his camcorder when he looked over and noticed the younger of the two had slid off the bed and wandered over to him.

“What’s up, kid?” he asked, framing him in the camera.

Ace grinned, then grabbed it out of his hands. “Woah, careful, that’s some high-quality goods.” But he didn’t drop it, just turned it around and pointed it at Miles. “What’s this, an interview?”

“Yeah!”

“Okay, then.” He felt his own smile grow lopsided. “Ask away.”

Ace considered solemnly for a few moments. “What’s your name?” he asked finally.

Miles put on his professional face. “Miles Upshur, at your service.”

“What’s your favorite color?”

“Oh, a hard one. Hmm.... I’m gonna have to go with....” Purples, the color of the softest velvet, of summer nights spent sitting on the porch after sunset, the color of bruises after a few days, of intestines, of blood mixed with muck in the sewer drains... “Blue,” he said.

“Okay, Mr. Miles,” Ace was saying, without any regard for honorific grammar, “How’d you lose your fingers?”

**Careful,** the walrider said, as if he didn’t know that already. He glanced over at Waylon, but it didn’t look like the man would notice a fire alarm, or an actual fire for that matter, let alone a kid asking some rude questions.

“Well, see one day, I was, uh, playing with scissors, and I wasn’t being careful, and,” he holds up his left hand in a scissor shape to demonstrate, holding it over his right stub, “snip! It was not fun. Never play with scissors, kids.”

“What about the other one?”

He looked down at his hands. “So what happened was, after the accident with this hand, I tried to grab the scissors so I could put them away, but just like that—darn, I had another accident.”

Miles looked back up. Waylon was still staring at the screen, but he’d stopped typing. Even Cas had pulled himself away from his show long enough to listen to him.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious, he took the camera back and turned it on Ace. “What about you, kid? Got any battle scars?”

He let the boy show him the nasty scrape on his elbow, and it wasn't long until Cas came over to model the weird bruise on the back of his knee that his brother insisted was a birthmark. By that time Lisa had emerged from the bathroom, and her presence was enough to send the kids guiltily back to the bed to find other things to amuse themselves with.

* * *

 Eventually Waylon decided it was bedtime for the boys, and since they were all in one room that seemed to mean bedtime for everyone.

Four blessed hours of near-dreamless sleep went by before he was woken up by a strange huffing sound. At first he thought Waylon and Lisa were having sex— _with kids in the room???—_ but after listening for a minute, he was sure it wasn’t that. For one thing, it was just Waylon the noise was coming from. For another, he sounded pretty distressed. And maybe it was just a combination of those things, but the walrider was restless, practically rippling with the urge to peel out of him, and it was that which made Miles sure what he was hearing was the sounds of someone wrestling with a bad nightmare.

**I am not causing it,** came the response almost immediately. **And I cannot see what he is seeing. There is no harm is listening.  
**

_It’s not right._

**He would have nightmares either way. This can only ease the burden on you, Miles.**

Logically, he knew that. But it didn’t do anything to ease the knot in his stomach, and when Waylon finally slipped out of his nightmare he got up and slipped outside.

The parking lot was quiet, the handful of cars sitting empty while their owners slept or had affairs or did shady deals inside. Everything was awash in the yellow-orange of the streetlights. Clouds were gathering overhead, and a distant rumbling signaled rain. But not yet. For now a faint wind blew, rustling leaves and causing the sign on the nearest light post to rock back and forth, and stuttering _tick, tick tick_. He would’ve taken it as a bad omen if things weren’t bad enough already.

Instead he sat in the same plastic chair he’d found out here earlier and said, “Go on, stretch your nanomachines a little. Who knows when you’ll have another chance.”

It didn’t need telling twice, splitting from him so fast it made him glad he was sitting down. They’d been sharing space for long enough that he forgot what it felt like without the numbing cold, the buzzing that went bone-deep and ached in his teeth, the weight in his chest. His old aches were coming back, and while he felt lighter, he also felt like he needed a handful of advil, so, kind of a tradeoff.

And the second sight. Before, he’d been starting to learn how to tune in and out of it, but now it felt like he was starting from scratch. For long minutes, as it ducked in and out of cars, he focused on seeing and not-seeing until muscle memory started to get the hang of it again.

Finally the walrider drifted back over to him, a satisfied expression emanating from it.

“So how far out can you go from me, exactly?”

**Don’t know. Do you want to test it?**

He shook his head. “Nah, too risky. Maybe if we’re ever not on the run anymore.”

**It would be useful to know for when we _are_ on the run.**

“Not yet.” And again in his mind, _Not yet._ He stood up, and it merged with him without needing to be told.

* * *

That morning Waylon took the boys down to the lobby for continental breakfast. Lisa stayed behind, claiming a lack of appetite, and spent most of the time in the bathroom. Miles spent a lot of time a whole lotta nothing, because anything more complicated than his camcorder tended to fry if he touched it with the walrider under his skin.

When Waylon came back, he brought a small platter of toast wrapped in a napkin, which Miles was absurdly grateful for. He’d also gotten him one of those little juice cups, and something about that brought him right back to his childhood, long car rides with his dad, drinking apple juice on the way home.

Lisa came out of the bathroom, and Waylon shot her a worried look, which she waved off. “We have to be out of here by noon, so everyone get your stuff together.”

“Where are we going next?” Miles asked.

She shot him a hard glare, but after glancing at the boys, relented enough to offer, “We’re heading southwest.”

He accepted that was probably the best he was going to get, and packed up his stuff, resigning himself to another long car ride.


	13. 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> lucky number 13

They drove west. For a while, the monotony was broken only by Waylon constantly fussing with the music in the front and Cas trying and failing to explain to his brother the plot of the latest episode of some tv show in the back.

When they pulled off the highway and past a small lake, the boys perked up.

“We’re going to the reservwater?!” Ace squeaked.

“Surprise.” Waylon said, beaming warmly at him.

“Again?” Cas asked. Without waiting for a reply, he put his headphones in. Starting to get into his moody preteen phase, Miles supposed.

It did help him put together a picture of where they were going, though. The lake they passed must have been Lake George, and they were still heading west, meaning they must be heading for some kind of cabin or campground. And it was a place they’d gone often enough for the boys to recognize it by road landmarks.

“Elevenmile Reservoir?” he asked.

“We go every summer!” said Ace. “We were there earlier this year... but that’s ok!”

“Aren’t most of these places closed this time of year? Imminent snow and all?”

“I have a friend in the parks department,” said Lisa from in front of him. “Her son is a part-time ranger. He’s gonna leave the gate open for us.”

They spent the rest of the ride down with Ace bouncing excitedly in the back and Cas next to him stolidly ignoring his surroundings.

The gate _was_ closed, looked bolted shut, but Lisa jumped out and went up to it, anyway. Twisted, and the chain fell off easily. She pushed it open, then got back in the car and drove them through. Almost at the end of the road she took a sharp turn onto a dirt path that led into the woods. For a while all they saw was trees, with the occasional break in the foliage revealing the lake glimmering in the distance. It hurt his eyes to look at it, and he wished for some cloud cover to dampen the breathtaking view.

He hadn’t known what he expected, but when they finally rolled to a stop, what he got was a real authentic-looking cabin.

“We rent this place sometimes,” Waylon explained, then frowned. “Although they don’t usually rent at this time of year...”

The boys had no qualms about this, though; as soon as the van rolled to a stop they were climbing out, Ace spinning in circled and Cas trudging long-sufferingly to the door with his stuff.

From the back of the van Lisa produced a pair of long-handled shears and strode towards the cabin door. She cut the lock off with a smooth, practiced motion that raised more questions than it answered.

Inside, it looked like a little lodge. Big fireplace, antlered skull hanging over the mantle, kitchenette, nice big rugs everywhere. Cold, though. “No heat?” he asked as Waylon went around turning on the lights.

“Sadly, no. It’s usually fine in the summer, but at least the fireplace will get some use. Once we get it going it should heat the whole place just fine.”

Behind them, Lisa was hauling luggage out of the van. “Need help with that?” Miles asked.

“Nah. We can handle this if you two can go get the firewood.”

He and Waylon exchanged glances, then gave in and trudged out into the woods. As soon as they got under the canopy it was like night had fallen, and it wasn’t helped by how muted the noise around them had become.

He waited until they were a safe distance out of sight from the cabin, then stopped. “Hang on a sec,” he said to Waylon.

_Okay, go have fun._

He let out a shaky breath as the walrider separated from him and rushed off into the woods.

“Is that safe?” Waylon asked him.

Miles shrugged. “There’s no one around, right? Plus I plan on getting on my laptop again at some point, and nanites do not mix well with that kind of technology.” _Gospel of sand_ , he thought. He put a hand out toward Waylon, remembered his reaction the last time, and pulled it back. “Look, I gotta ask you something. When you were escaping Mount Massive, did you find anything? Notes, documents?”

Waylon wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Does it matter?”

“Does--? Yes! Yes it does matter, Waylon. You may trust these guys you talked to, but I don’t. I’m doing some research of my own, and I need to know what you know. If there are other facilities out there, I need to find them.”

“And then what? Take them down all by yourself? Why can’t you just let it go?”

“Because, because I just can’t! I can’t just forget about things like that. That’s why you contacted me in the first place, isn’t it?”

Waylon was gritting his teeth, arms crossed tight around his chest, and Miles was momentarily surprised he could see him so clearly, until he realized the walrider had come up behind him. Lending him its superior night vision, or just a lurking voyeur?

“Look,” Miles said finally. “Just tell me the important stuff, if you know it. I don’t need patient files or anything like that, but if you know anything about Murkoff, about their capabilities, resources, you gotta tell me. It could save our lives.”

“I don’t know a lot, unless you want to know what kind of programming language the Engine software runs on. The documents I found weren’t very informative. Mostly they were related to the walrider, probably things you already know.”

“Like what?”

“Like its effects on the female doctors, the false pregnancies, incidents of people unrelated to the project reportedly seeing the walrider. Analysis of MKULTRA methodology. Nothing about Murkoff’s current goings-on. That’s it.” He frowned. “I mean it, Miles. You think I’d hold back something that might put us in danger?”

Miles wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “No, I guess not. Okay. Let’s just go get wood already.”

-

It was Lisa who eventually got the fire going. The walrdier had decided it’d had enough of being stuffed inside a meat suit, and was currently frolicking through the undergrowth outside, which was fine with Miles. Maybe it was just the fire, but he felt warmer than he had in a long time.

The boys got a kick out of roasting marshmallows, as kids always had and probably always would. There was something very summer camp about the whole experience, or he thought there would be, if he’d gone to summer camp for more than a week in elementary school.

As the evening turned into night, Lisa caught his eye and nodded to the doorway on the far right. “That’ll be your room. The boys usually get their own rooms, but they can share for once. Me and Waylon’ll be in the middle room. Sheets and towels are in the closet. Sound good?”

He nodded. “Guess I’ll say goodnight then.” Rising, somewhat stiffly, he shouldered his duffle and carried it with him, willing himself not to turn around to see if they were watching him go.

It was a nice room, all things considered. Small, sure, mostly taken up by the bed against the back wall, but the slanted ceiling made it feel a little bigger. He set his camcorder on the bedside table and shut the door, then made a fair effort to get the sheets on the bed. At some point the walrider appeared, watching him with amusement. Miles gave it a friendly middle finger and climbed under the comforter.

As he lay in the creaky old bed, it floated around inspecting the room. Various knickknacks sat on shelves or hung on walls, leftovers from the original owners or other renters, a testament to travel or the wilderness or whatever. He knew, without really knowing how, that the walrider liked practical things, things with a use, but it also liked to look at things it found aesthetically pleasing.

“Feels kind of like a sleepover, doesn’t it?” he asked, grinning.

 **Be quiet and go to sleep, Miles,** it said, and he laughed.


	14. 14

_The radio in the examination room was playing a_ [ _song he knew_ ](https://youtu.be/GGaai0AII3E?t=56s) _. He stood with his hands pressed against the makeshift counter, listening to the doctor mumble as he set up his instruments. Today’s patient hung upright from a heavy hook in the ceiling, bound and gagged. It wasn’t someone he knew._

_“Hmm, there it is! Miles, man, stay with me, we’re about to start the show.”_

_He turned around. The doctor stood, knife in hand, torn mask showing the stretch of his smile. “Pass me that clipboard, will you? There’s a good assistant.”_

_The clipboard sat on the counter by his hands, and he passed it along as instructed. The doctor was humming off-key, and the patient had begun screaming through his gag. And he realized he did know him. Something about this was itching at the back of his brain, but not in a bad way. This was...justice being served._

_Miles heard himself ask, “What’d he say he was the problem again?”_

_“Ah, you know how it is. They come in complaining about a little bit of broccoli stuck in their teeth, then it turns out the real problem is flesh-eating bacteria, or asthma. This guy here,” the doctor patted his side. “And, this is just my professional opinion, but I’d say he’s got some...commitment issues. Not good with opening up, heh, y’know how it is.” He looked down at the knife in his hand. “Oh, no no no, this won’t do, only the best for you, my man, yes, sir....”_

_The doctor strolled over to the counter, laying the knife down with a surgeon’s precision. “What do you think, buddy, what’s the right tool for this job?”_

_To his surprise, he thought about it, really considered the question. And then his eyes fell on the handsaw, sitting innocuously among the knives and scissors and crowbars. “That one.”_

_“Of course!” The doctor cried. “You always did have an eye for it.” He clapped Miles on the shoulder. “Why, one day you’ll be as good as me, that is, after you get some hands-on experience.” He looked him over, smirked. “And a sense of humor. Seriously, lighten up, it’s not brain surgery.” The saw began to whirr._

_Out of nowhere, he was hit by the feeling that things hadn’t always been like this, that he should feel some pity for the man on the chopping block. And he tried, but it just wouldn’t come. This man was going to get what was coming to him._

_Distantly he was aware of the sound of saw meeting flesh, the wet smell of blood. The screaming. “Miles, c’mere and give me a hand already.”_

_And he did._

_-_

He woke, drenched in sweat. The weight lifted off his chest, and slowly he let his eyes open.

“What the hell was that?” His throat was painfully dry, and the words didn’t come out all the way, but that was fine; he knew it understood him.

**I wanted to try something different. What did you think? Was it better? Worse?**

Miles thought about it. No blind fear, no running. Replaced instead by that vision of himself, a willing accomplice to torture, and the vague memories of having done it all before, countless times, standing by Trager’s side. “Not better or worse,” he said finally. “Just different.”

They’d been at the cabin for a little over three days. For the most part, it had been all peace and quiet, although there’d been some on and off tension with Waylon after their little talk in the woods. Often, the walrider would venture out on its own for long periods of time. They had tested their connection and found that it could go off on its own about a mile before they both felt a painful tugging like something was on the verge of snapping, and it had to come back. But even though it hadn’t been around much, he’d known since yesterday that a bad dream would be coming soon.

He rolled over, groped for his phone. 4:15. “I don’t know how much longer I can do this for,” he whispered.

**Then ask Waylon.**

“No.” Turning the phone over, he grabbed the pillow and pulled it over his head. “I’ll...I’ll feel better in the morning,” he mumbled into the mattress.

 **You are...** It paused, trying to think of the right phrasing. **Running yourself ragged. They can see it. They will know something’s wrong.**

Gritting his teeth, he sat up, searching for its face in the darkness. “Then why don’t you stop pushing me!”

His words echoed uncomfortably in the small room. “Shit.” He waited, but nothing stirred in the cabin.

**Miles. The children are unmarked by tragedy. Even Lisa could not sustain me. You refuse to ask Waylon. There are no other humans nearby. That means I only have you to feed on.**

“Doesn’t matter. You don’t need all that power. You’re pushing me too hard. You want in his head, you wanna prove a point, but it’s not gonna work like that. You’re the one who said we should vote on it, and I’m still voting no.”

 **Stubborn—** it hissed. **Fine. Have it your own way. If you want me to push, I’ll push.**

He braced for a sudden blow, or even to be torn limb from limb, but instead it blew past him, sinking through the wall and out into the night.

Miles slept the rest of the night through, no dreams.

-

He spent most of the day in the living room, watching they boys mess with their phones, taking some time to check his own. It was coming in at close to a week since he’d checked in with some people, and he couldn’t get a damn signal. Eventually he walked outside and changed his voicemail to, “Yeah, it’s Miles, my phone’s turned off because I’m out doing my job, leave a message and I’ll get it whenever.”

Maybe it was clear he felt like shit, because Lisa approached him around lunchtime and strongarmed him into going on a hike with her and the boys. By the time they got back he was breathing hard and knew much more about the local flora and fauna than he needed to.

It didn’t make him feel much better, but at least for a few hours he felt relatively normal. As soon as they got back he felt the walrider waiting for him in his room.

Post-dinner, he excused himself, claiming a sudden tiredness. The Park family seemed to buy it, and now he could hear them in the living room, playing scrabble or somesuch. Miles sat on the bed, staring at the patch of darkness in the corner. “Well?” he asked.

The walrider said nothing, just hovered there, watching. He stayed there, waiting for it to make a move, listening to the sound of pots and pans being cleaned in the kitchen, the occasional shouts of laughter, all of it muffled as if it were coming from a long distance away.

Then he grit his teeth and climbed into bed.

-

 _Pain. Fear. Pain running dead guard chris walker crunching glass hard floor father martin flooded basement hiding running_ pain _._

_He knew he was dreaming. Knew it, but couldn’t stop it from happening. If he tried to stand his ground, the scene skipped forward and he was curled up in the dumbwaiter, going up toward the horror that waited above. If he went left instead of right, he was bludgeoned to death, burned up, torn to pieces. He lost track of the number of times he was tortured, shot to death, only to find himself standing once again at the gates of Mount Massive, to begin it all again._

_It seemed he almost woke up, many times, but each time the weight on his chest forced him back down again, each time he slipped under like plunging through ice into frigid water._

_If there was any upside to his endless speedrun, he thought that at least he was becoming desensitized to it. Slowly, far too slowly, but surely. Soon it would have to give up...right?_

_For the hundredth time ,he stood in storm-swept courtyard. “Come on!” he shouted into the dark. “I know you’re more creative than this! Come on you fucking—“_

Sunlight hit him like a truck, forcing a stuttering gasp out of him. He staggered to his feet, looking at every angle of the room, but he was alone. When he cast out for its second sight, all he saw was grass, dirt, endless configurations of trees.

Waylon met him in the kitchen. He didn’t say anything as Miles poured himself some cereal, but his face was drawn up tight in that way Miles had come to know meant he _was_ going to say something, couldn’t help himself. So he waited, eating without tasting, eyes on the table.

When the silence finally became too much, he asked, “Where’s Lisa and the boys?”

“Nature walk. Where’s the walrider?”

He closed his eyes. “Still messing around in the woods somewhere. It won’t show itself in front of your family, though.”

“Good.” He took a seat at the other end of the admittedly small table. “I need to talk to you.”

Shrugging, he put his spoon down.

“What’s going on with you?”

“Nothin.”

“Let me rephrase that. _What’s wrong with you?_ "

That made Miles snap his head up.

“You woke us up screaming last night. Then you saunter in here this morning like nothing’s wrong? Tell me honestly, Miles: is it getting worse?”

He shrugged. “It’s just trying to rile me up, that’s all.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me that.”

He did. “It’s. Nothing.”

Waylon slammed his hands down on the table. “Do you want to die? Do you want the walrider to go berserk and kill me and my family? It’s not just your health you’re gambling with here!”

“This is what it _wants,_ Waylon! It wants to get inside your head, so it’s been putting pressure on me to try and make me give in. I’m—I’m trying to protect you, man.”

Deflated, Waylon sat back down. Bit his lip. Said, “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“I’ll give it what it wants. Then it’ll back off, right?”

Miles grit his teeth. “If you do that it’ll learn that it can bully you into taking what it wants! Which is not a good thing for a being like the walrider to be thinking.”

“You want to play the waiting game with it? Find out which of you is more stubborn? How much longer do you think you can keep this up? What am I supposed to tell the boys when they ask me why my friend is screaming every night? This self-sacrificing thing you’re doing has gone far enough, all right? So...” His hands, where they lay on the table, curled into fists. “Just let me do this for you.”

Something warm rolled through him, and Miles dropped his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, go for it.”

“ _Thank_ you,” Waylon said. And then more quietly, after a pause, “What is it exactly that I’m volunteering for?”

Miles had to laugh, even if all he could muster was a low, brittle one. He had a feeling it was that attitude that had gotten the guy in trouble with Murkoff in the first place. “Some bad dreams, I guess. You already have nightmares, right? It probably won’t be much different.” Well, Waylon would learn soon enough just how bad the dreams were, after all. No need to freak him out after his little victory. “Oh, and it has to sit on your chest, so, uh, maybe you wanna do it when you’re not in bed with Lisa.”

Waylon flushed a blotchy red. “That...yeah, that would be good.”

Outside, he heard kid feet scampering around, then the front door opened and Cas ran in. “Dad can I borrow your computer?”

“What for?”

He rolled his eyes. “My show was on last night, I wanna download it.”

“Cas, we’ve talked about how dangerous those streaming sites you use are, and you know how important my laptop is—“

“Please, I’ll be super careful!”

Waylon shot Miles a self-pitying look like, _kids, can you believe it?_ Miles could. He shrugged back. “All right, since we’re on vacation...”

“Yes! Thank you!” And then he was off, into the master bedroom to rummage through his dad’s stuff, no doubt.

It was around that point when Ace walked in through the still-open door. What his brother lacked in vitality, he made up for with its opposite; the boy looked stiff and pale. “You okay, kid?” Miles asked him.

Waylon turned to look at him. “Where’s your mother?”

“Throwing up in the woods,” he said, then sat down on the floor.


	15. 15

It turned out Lisa was fine, she’d just felt a little sick during their nature walk and had to stop to evacuate her stomach. A fact that Cas had conveniently forgotten to mention when he came back. She said she’d probably eaten something bad, but. Something felt off. Miles remembered the time she’d spent in the bathroom during their motel visit. Well, he didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, but he resolved to keep an eye on her. If there was one thing his years as an investigative journalist had taught him, it was to treat everything as a possible lead.

On the other hand, that attitude had gotten him slapped more times than he cared to remember, and he’d learned it was just as important to know when to keep his mouth shut, so he did that too.

That evening as everyone was going to bed, Waylon claimed he wanted to sit by the fire for a while longer. Miles lingered a while until Lisa and the boys had gone to bed, and sure enough, the walrider showed up a few minutes later. It didn’t say anything, but it had that standoffish, _I’m still mad at you_ posture he associated with his aunt’s cats after being locked out of the bedroom overnight.

“So I just...go to sleep?” Waylon asked.

“Yeah. Think you can manage that with an audience, or do you want me to leave?”

Waylon looked from him to the walrider. “I think I’d rather have you in the same room.” He sat down on the couch, gathering one of the excess blankets into a pillow, and lay down. Closed his eyes.

Miles sat down on the chair on the other side of the coffee table, watching him. _Be careful with him,_ he thought, putting as much firmness into it as he could.

 **I know that** , it replied almost immediately. **I will restrain myself, or I will not get another chance.**

It took Waylon a while to fall asleep. Not that Miles could blame him, it was a lot to ask for, passing out in front of an audience and expecting bad dreams. He found himself starting to drift off as he waited. But the walrider knew exactly when Waylon had slipped under enough, and its anticipation woke Miles before it actually started to move.

 _Is he asleep?_ He asked it, even though he already knew.

 **He will not wake,** it said, which was its incredibly roundabout way of saying yes.

Miles hesitated as it approached Waylon, gently turning him onto his back. _Don’t...don’t let him scream._

 **Of course.** It raised a hand to his face, gently running skeletal fingers over his forehead to his temples and back again.

“Do you do that every time?”

**Shhhhh. Yes, it will help put him into a deeper state of sleep.**

Waylon didn’t look any more asleep, but he wasn’t exactly waking up, either. Miles watched as it settled on his chest, watched Waylon’s breathing become heavier.

**I need to focus now. Do not speak, if you are capable of that.**

He made a point of not replying. Watched Waylon's eyes flicker back and forth under his eyelids. Wondered what Waylon was seeing, and felt another stab of guilt. But he had asked for this, had offered to help. The least Miles could do for him was bear witness...ugh. Where had he heard _that_ before? But he would do it, and fuck bad taste in his mouth.

And still, despite his resolve, it wasn’t too long until his eyes closed.

* * *

 

That morning, Waylon wouldn’t talk to him. Wouldn’t make eye contact. He’d woken up first, maybe hours before Miles, and gone back to sleep in the master bedroom. The walrider had also made itself scarce. The fire had gone out during the night, and the whole cabin was uncomfortably cold. As Lisa instructed the boys on making pancakes, his thoughts turned to how long they could stay out here once the snows came. Back in the city, he’d be stuck with the walrider most of the time which, on the one hand he could keep an eye on it, on the other they hadn’t exactly been getting along recently as it was. Plus, he figured it needed room to run around. Like a horse, or—

**Or some other less demeaning animal.**

_Like a majestic eagle. A nosy mind-reading eagle. Which needs to roam free so it doesn’t keep getting into other people’s business._

“What’s so funny?” Lisa asked him.

Miles realized he’d been smiling. “Just thinking about, uh, birds. Y’know. Normal stuff that people find amusing.”

“Birds are gross,” Cas interjected from the kitchen.

“Cas, watch your language,” Lisa told him.

Miles tried not to chuckle. He watched them cook for a while, even made a show of enjoying the slightly-burnt pancakes the boys had made. And when Waylon came out of the bedroom, he managed a civil nod before retreating to his own room for a little nap.

He woke up groggy from too much sleep, groped for the phone he'd left on the headboard's shelf. Somehow he'd managed to sleep past noon and onward. Outside, the light filtering through the window was already beginning to take on the colors of sunset, and he took a moment to resent living in a place where the days started getting shorter so early.

In the common room, Lisa had gotten a fire going, and was shooing Ace away from the pile of kindling without looking up from her book. That reminded Miles of all the soggy romance novels he'd brought for the walrider, and to wonder if it had even bothered to read any of them.

He closed his eyes to better focus on whatever the walrider was up to, found it hanging around the cabin. Outside the range of the lights shining inside, thankfully; it’d be a shitty thing to have to explain his situation because one of the boys peeked out the window and had a heart attack.

Still sunk in its senses, he wasn’t sure whether the radio crackle he heard had come from outside, or something inside the cabin. He pulled back, blinking in the bright light and looking around.

“Did you hear something?”

Lisa looked up at him, puzzled. Waylon didn’t reply verbally, just shook his head from where he lay on the couch.

**Someone is nearby.**

_Who, hikers?_

**No. There are too many.**

“I have a bad feeling,” Miles said, standing up. He walked to the door.

Waylon finally seemed to take notice. “Miles, wait—“

He froze, one hand still reaching out to grasp the door handle, fighting hard against the pain which had just ripped through his stomach. _Oh shit what was that did someone just snipe me through the door oh my god this hurts I gotta say something—_

Slowly, he turned his head to look at the Park family. “Uh, run, probably?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew.


	16. 16

No one moved. Miles groaned and crouched down, putting his back against the wall, and shutting his eyes tight. He reached out with his mind. _What’s goin on out there?_

**They are definitely Murkoff. I can think of no one else who would send a heavily armed team into a state park.**

_Okay. Kill them._

**Gladly. But you should move away from the cabin all the same. Out the back window; they are only focusing on the front door.**

Vaguely he was aware of Lisa demanding to know what was going on, and Cas looking like he was going to hurl. So much for all that TV violence he’d watched, huh? “Out the back,” he grated out, lurching to his feet. “Window,” he clarified. Outside, he could hear shooting, but it wasn’t aimed at the cabin. His second sight was a blur of light and movement, and he pushed it back, trying to focus on what was going on with his physical body.

From somewhere next to him, he heard Lisa say, “Jesus, Miles, you’re bleeding a lot,” but he waved her off. “I’ll be fine. C’mon.” He thought maybe his words were drowned out by a sudden burst of gunfire peppering the front wall, but no, they were finally moving.

Waylon wrapped an arm around him and hauled him forward. The boys were already running ahead, Lisa not far behind them.

In the bedroom, Lisa opened the window as far as it would go. The screen had already been ripped off its hinges, and Miles had a moment to be grateful before he was helping Lisa climb through, then being hauled through himself. Waylon swung his leg over just as the front door made a familiar splintering sound. Then he was through, and they were running, Waylon once again helping him forward. Even so, the two of them were losing ground.

Finally Lisa turned around and ran back to them. “Go,” Waylon told her. “Take the boys and go, we’ll catch up.”

Her eyebrows knit together, but she nodded. “We’ll meet up at the gas station, okay?” She kissed him on the cheek, and then took off running.

“We should,” Miles panted. “Lay a, a false trail.” He turned toward the reservoir, which lay far off but downhill, but Waylon stopped him.

“Not that way. Due north, we can lose them in the rocks, they won’t be able to follow our footprints.”

Miles nodded. He let Waylon lead him forward, casting out his awareness for the walrider. He found it still gleefully ripping people apart. _Make sure you get all of them,_ he thought. It didn’t reply, but he knew it was planning on doing that anyway.

Without warning, snow started to fall, big fluffy flakes of it. He thought idly that this was why the goddamn campgrounds closed in the fall. It also served to remind him of just how ill-prepared he had been; his duffle lay on the floor back at the cabin, forgotten, and all he had was his jacket and his camera. Not even shoes, just the warm socks he’d been wearing, which were now starting to moisten with sweat and snow. And Waylon wasn’t much better off. At least the moon was full enough to see by, even if it was fading in and out of the cloud cover.

They walked until they couldn’t hear gunfire anymore, and then they walked some more. At some point the walrider must have finished with the attackers at the house, because he could feel it some distance behind them, following slowly as it swept the area for signs of possible pursuit.

He looked up, stumbled. “What’s that?” he asked. In front of them, still some distance away, a kind of wooden structure loomed, looking like a cross between a water tower and a guard outpost.

“A lookout point,” Waylon said. “Great view of the fall leaves during the day, and an okay view of the surrounding treeline at night. We should go up.”

Miles didn’t point out that it wasn’t much in the way of shelter, especially if they were going to have to spend the night. He figured Waylon would tell him it was better than nothing.

There was a wooden landing at the top of the platform, a four-foot wall on all sides that did at least do a little to keep the wind out, and a slanted roof to top it all off. Miles took out his camera, panned around. When he got to Waylon, he expected it to be knocked out of his hands, but Waylon wasn’t looking at him. He was staring out at the edge of the field. “What’s that?” he asked, voice barely above a whisper.

Miles pointed the camera where he was looking, zoomed it in as far as it would go. The action was so familiar he almost tried to switch to infrared, especially when he saw what Waylon had caught sight of.

“So if someone had said this to me a week ago I would’ve freaked out, but, it’s just the walrider.” He grinned. Waylon shot him an annoyed look, but Miles caught the way his shoulders relaxed.

He also caught the way he shivered. Miles wasn’t sure if it was because of what he’d said or just the cold, but he took off his jacket anyway and dumped it in Waylon’s lap.

“Take it, I’m pretty sure I can’t get cold anymore.” _Or at least not cold enough to freeze to death._

Waylon opened his mouth, then closed it in a frown and put on the jacket. When Miles looked up again the walrider had ascended the stairs, and he said, “Did you get them all?”

**Yes. But one of them may have called for backup.**

“ _May_ have?”

**I ripped him apart when I realized what he was doing. But I think their superiors will realize something has gone wrong. Even if that one was unable to call for backup, they may send it anyway.**

“Shit.”

“What’s it saying?” Waylon asked.

“Nothin good. Apparently we might have to worry about more of them showing up unannounced.” He shot Waylon a questioning look. “These guys you contacted about Murkoff, you ever hear back from them?”

“I—no.”

“Is it possible that they’re not gonna come through for us, after all?”

Waylon hesitated. “There....may be a chance that they weren’t completely honest with me.”

Miles laughed, then grimaced and put a hand to his stomach. The walrider immediately responded by merging with him, and he let out a sigh of relief as the pain ebbed.

He looked over, noticed Waylon was still staring at him intently.

“What?”

“How bad is it? Your, uh, bullet wound.”

He considered for a moment. “Unbelievably, not the worst I’ve had.” Carefully, he lifted his shirt to take a look.

Waylon sucked in a sharp breath. “God, Miles, what happened to you?”

“Oh.” He’d forgotten or stopped caring at some point about not showing Waylon his mortally-wounding scars. “I, well, I may have gotten shot a few times. Or a bunch of times. At once. But I got better, so... yeah. This one will probably heal too.”

**It uses up the precious few reserves of power I have, though,** the walrider grumbled.

“Excuse you, it’s not like I was trying to get shot!” he snapped. “Not you, Waylon, sorry.”

His hands traced the scars left by the other bullet holes, already healing, no longer hurting. _Shot full of lead,_ he thought absurdly, and snorted.

A strong gust of wind hit him, and he hunkered down with his back against the wall. A few seconds later, Waylon did the same.

“How did they find us?” he asked.

Miles shrugged mutely.

In the silence that followed he could practically hear the gears turning in Waylon’s head. “Cellphone tracking maybe?”

He bit back a snide _You’re the computer guy, you should know._ Took a deep breath. “If so, we tied that problem up by leaving all our stuff at the cabin.”

Waylon froze, stuck his hands in his pants pockets. After a second, he held up his phone. “What do I—“

“Give it here.” Miles grabbed it out of his hands before he could react. He took a deep breath, tried to get the feel of the swarm and direct it. He tightened his fist.

The phone splintered and sparked in his grip.

“Wait, all my contacts are on there!”

“Oh, sorry.” He let go, and phone pieces scattered themselves on the wooden floor. Waylon dove after them, fishing around for the phone’s SIM card. He pulled it up, sighed with relief, and shot Miles a reproachful look, which he ignored.

“Okay. Now that we know they’re not tracking us, we can form a plan.”

Miles raised an eyebrow. “It sounds like you’ve got something in mind already.”

“The gas station Lisa wants to meet us at is a little ways west of Lake George, which means we’re going to have to walk or hitch our way back out of the park. That’s if we can even find the road. My guess is, our best bet is to keep walking east, and eventually we’ll run into the road.”

“I wouldn’t try to hitch,” Miles said. “Nobody’s gonna stop for two guys out in the middle of the wilderness.”

Waylon nodded. “Then we’ll walk. From the reservoir to the gas station it’s about nine, maybe ten miles. We can make that. We’ve been through worse, right?” He chuckled weakly.

Miles thought about the dusting of snow that was still falling, about their lack of shoes or food or any kind of survival gear. Thought about trying to find ‘east’ under the heavy cover of the trees, and about Murkoff sending backup after them. But all he said was, “Yeah. We sure have.”


	17. 17

Waylon had suggested they get some sleep, and head out in the early morning, when hopefully the snow would be finished and they could actually see what they were doing. They huddled close together on the dirty floor, feet pulled up, trying to get what rest they could. Miles felt himself drift off a few times, but it was a fitful, unsatisfying thing.

Beside him, Waylon shifted and let out a frustrated sigh.

“Can’t sleep either?” Miles asked.

“No.”

He wondered if Waylon was worrying about his family. Wondered if Murkoff would attempt to use Miles’ own relations against him. His first thought was dry amusement, but if they really did go after his family—his _friends_ —well, he’d have to do something about it, wouldn’t he?

Actually, he kind of hoped they would, if only so he could find out where the rest of the company was hiding and start systematically dismantling it from the top down. Or from the ground up, if he really had to.

“Okay, let’s play a game,” he said suddenly.

Waylon snorted. “A game?”

“How about this: one or two words. Worst thing that happened to you at Mount Massive.”

“That’s not really something I want to talk about. With you. Ever.”

Miles elbowed him. “C’mon, man, we’ve got a shared experience here. Might as well do something fun with it.”

“No offense, but this is not my idea of fun.”

Miles relented, pillowing his head on his knees. The wind whipped through the trees, and the lookout tower creaked in response. It should have been peaceful.

Sometime later, maybe minutes, Waylon said quietly, “It was the, the moments of clarity that were really the worst. The other parts, you could think _maybe it’s the engine’s fault,_ but underneath it all there would be these... little human things. That was what really got to me, once the initial horror of the situation had passed.”

“Damn, dude, that was more than a few words.”

He made a frustrated noise. “A short example, then: there was this patient, he grabbed me by the hand. After seeing all the people he’d tortured and killed, it—“ he trailed off.

Miles lifted his head. “Yeah, I can related to that. Hell of a coincidence, but yeah.”

Waylon turned to look at him. “What, really?”

He chuckled. “I just hope to hell we’re not talkin about the same person.”

“...who was it?”

“...It was Rick Trager.” The name made Waylon deflate a little, tension leaving his shoulders. Miles continued. “Right before he cut my fingers off. Just...holding my hand, almost delicately, while waving a fucking torture instrument around. There were definitely worse things that happened, but the, the dissonance of it, it’s just like you said. You can see there was a real person under there at some point. And the things he said while he was chasing me...Waylon?”

He was shaking again. “S-sorry. I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

“Not really good bedtime story material, is it?”

“Also, I, want to apologize for how I acted this morning. It’s not your fault, I just—“

Miles cut him off. “Don’t even worry about it, seriously. Just... thanks. Sorry I was such a stubborn dick about asking for help.”

**I should be the one you direct that apology at.** He tried to mentally swat its voice away, somewhat successfully.

“Anyway,” Waylon was saying, “We should try to get at least a few hours of sleep before we start walking.”

“Yeah,” he said, and put his head back down. When he was sure Waylon wasn’t going to try to continue the conversation, he thought, _Don’t you ever do something like that again, understand?_

**No, I don’t understand, please explain to me what your refusal to compromise has accomplished.**

_I know what you’re trying to say. ‘It worked, didn’t it?’ But that doesn’t matter, because the end doesn’t justify the means. You hurt me on purpose to get your way._

**I did it so I wouldn’t have to hurt you more later!**

Miles bit his lip. This was reminding him of one of those hypotheticals where you could only save one boat or the other, and one boat had 100 okay people while the other had 50 genuinely good people and they were all going to die if you didn’t do something.

**Miles. Stop. Not only are you blowing this out of proportion, that is a terrible metaphor.**

_I didn’t say it was a metaphor,_ he thought petulantly.

**I am sorry.** It paused. **You know, it is impossible for me not to see your side of things. I understand your feelings, even though I cannot emulate them.**

_What’re you getting at?_

**I will not coerce you like that any longer. But in return, _please_ listen to me when I advise you to do something.**

_No promises. But I’ll try if you will._

It didn’t reply, but he felt it relax, and finally, he was able to drift off to sleep.

* * *

 

That morning was crisp and clear. They walked for hours, probably. Miles wasn’t really sure, because neither of them had a watch, but they started in the damp predawn—and thankfully the snow _had_ stopped falling—and the sun was now shining right in their faces. It was rough going, but there was a soothing feeling to it, too. One foot in front of the other, all physical action, not much need for mental concentration. No reason not to let the mind wander.

But somehow it did still wander.

It was something about the mountains, he decided after mulling it over for a while. Wernicke had known it, and storytellers like Lovecraft and King had an inkling of it. Creature sightings in the Himalayas. Disappearances in the Russian mountain ranges. People getting snowed in and resorting to cannibalism.

Miles wasn’t sure if it had a name, but it was a feeling he’d gotten most strongly when he first set foot in the research facility, buried under so many pounds of rock. It consisted of a lot of mental _Oh god_ ’s and a healthy amount of _Fuck fuck fuck_ ’s, but he was sure somewhere out there was a name for it. Of being closed in with something bad, and...

He stumbled as the dirt path crossed something decidedly more manmade. Waylon laughed in relief, and Miles couldn't help but grin, even if there was even more walking ahead of them. Even if that walking was now on a slippery snowmelt road which his human companion insisted was the right one. In fact his exact words were something like _the only road for miles_ , which might or might not be an exaggeration, but could just as easily be true, from what he’d seen.

It was a cheering thought, but that little bit of cheer couldn’t quite stand up to the sun now baking down on them. Which, he thought with some frustration, shouldn’t have been a problem, not the day after a snow, but they’d been walking for hours, he was sure of it, and Waylon had taken off his jacket a while ago and returned it, just because the energy they were expending was burning them both up. Miles eyed the creek running alongside the road, and had to start repeatedly listing the reasons it would not be a good idea to jump in.

When they reached the outskirts of town—really more like a couple of houses surrounded by woods—Waylon called a halt.

“Don’t worry,” he said with a thin smile, “We’re almost there.”

Miles sank down on the ground. “Cool,” he said, “Great.” He didn’t ask what would happen if Lisa and the boys weren’t there waiting for them, didn’t mention that the van was still back at the cabin along with all their valuables and money. Just repeated his affirmatives, more quietly this time, and let his feet rest.

Cool.

Great.


	18. 18

There was no one at the gas station. Well, no one they were looking for. Just a guy in a pickup truck who eyed them suspiciously as he waited for his tank to fill. Miles was prepared to comfort Waylon, but his eyes were set, feet already starting to move again.

“There’s a motel a block over, they probably went there.” Dutifully, Miles trudged after him.

It wasn't the best motel he'd ever set foot in, but it did have chairs in the lobby, which he immediately dropped himself into. He noticed Walyon had also made a beeline for something, but it wasn't chairs, it was his wife.

He practically threw himself into her arms, and she caught him easily. She was smiling, but set him down stiffly.

Miles tried not to roll his eyes as he got to his feet, arriving just as Waylon pulled back, holding Lisa at arm’s length. “Are you all right? Where are the boys?”

“Sleeping,” she told him. “It was a long walk, and Cas might’ve caught something.”

Waylon’s brows knit together. “Pneumonia?” he almost whispered.

She shook her head, but her voice wavered as she said, “He probably just needs rest. We all do.” She glanced at Miles, then looked back at Waylon. “There’s something we need to talk about.”

“...I’m gonna grab a drink,” Miles told them.

“No, It’s fine—“ Waylon started, at the same time Lisa said, “Thank you, Miles.” As he shuffled off she said, “We’re in room 236.”

There was a water fountain in the lobby, and he drank until he felt like he was 90% water. Once he’d had his fill, he wandered toward the room number Lisa had mentioned.

They were probably still talking, he considered as he stood outside the door. It wasn’t like he was planning on eavesdropping or anything, he just wanted to know what Lisa and Waylon were saying without them knowing he was listening. Armed with this totally legit logic, he did a quick sweep of the hall to make sure no one was around, and pressed his ear against the door.

“—I can’t do this anymore,” Lisa was saying, her voice sounding more tired than he’d ever heard it.

“Sure, this was bad, but—“

“Waylon. Cas is sick. Ace isn’t speaking anymore. And I...” He heard her take a deep breath. “I think I’m pregnant.”

There was a heavy pause. “H-how is that possible? Did you—“

“I don’t know, and no. All I can tell you is I’m getting the same signs I did when I had the boys.”

_Oh, no._

Something clicked together for Miles, something he should have caught much earlier. Before he could reconsider, he pushed the door open.

“Miles, what the hell—“

“That's my fault. I’m sorry.” Both of them were staring at him open-mouthed. “Shit, not like that, _no_. It’s the walrider. Waylon, the documents. The cases of psychosomatic pregnancy.”

Waylon’s eyes widened, and he turned from Miles to Lisa. “Lisa, you need to go to a doctor.”

“I-?” One hand clutched to her stomach, she blinked down at Waylon. He nodded at her seriously, and she turned on Miles. “You!” she hissed. “What the _fuck_ did you do?”

“I didn’t know, I guess I should’ve known but I found out too late—“

She hit him. His face buzzed from the impact, and she sank to her knees at about the same time he backpedaled so fast he slammed into the door. That probably hurt worse than a hand to the face, but it didn’t matter.

“Is this real?” he heard her ask. “Is this really happening?” No one answered. He didn’t know about Waylon, but on his part it was because he just knew the moment he opened his mouth something terrible was going to come out. Something like _yeah it’s fuckin real it’s been happening this entire time it’s just that now you’re directly involved, doesn’t feel very nice, does it?_

But he knew she didn’t deserve it. She hadn’t signed on for this. Her husband had gone to work for a prestigious company, and come back a wounded fugitive. So after a deep breath what he ended up saying was, “You should go. Being around me is just going to make it worse.”

Waylon looked indignant, but Lisa was nodding. “Miles,” she said evenly, eyes still on the far wall. “Give us a minute.”

He backed out of the room and shut the door. Would have stayed there, had the walrider not taken control and deliberately walked him to the end of the hall. **Leave it.**

“Okay,” he said quietly. It hadn’t said a word to him during the walk, and now, staring out the smudged window, he was glad for its company. But still, he had to ask, “Did you know what was happening to her?”

**I...suspected it was possible. But in my weakened state, I judged it an acceptable risk.**

He nodded. The thought should maybe have angered him, but he didn’t feel all that mad. It knew he would be safest with Waylon, and that he wouldn’t have stayed if he’d known it might hurt Lisa, and it was right.

“What causes it?” he asked.

**Like much of my form, I assume it came from one of the minds that shaped me.**

Miles accepted this information, realized there was a lot he hadn’t asked about how the walrider worked.

It laughed. **The things I could tell you would give you more nightmares than either of us needs.**

“Your body, though. The nanites. How does all that shit work?”

**My mass fluctuates. I can control how large I am by generating or deactivating parts of the swarm. That takes time, but as long as enough of me is left, I can regenerate without limit.**

“So if enough of you were destroyed that you couldn’t come back...?”

**Are you thinking of killing me, Miles?**

He laughed. “Hardly. That’d be the same as suicide, I think. Even if I thought I could survive being separated from you, you would know I was thinking it and just find a new host before I could act on it.”

**Most likely.**

He smiled a bit at its blunt honesty, opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. A quiet fell between them as the walrider gave Miles time to gather his thoughts.

Finally he said, “If...If something does happen, can you promise me something? Promise you won’t make Waylon your host, or, or his family. Unless there’s no other options.”

 **I promise** , it said.

“I mean it.”

 **I mean it,** it echoed him. Miles knew there was no way to prove it mean what it said, or that a promise had any weight, but he remembered what it had said the night before, about knowing the emotion even if it couldn’t emulate, and decided not to push.

A door opened somewhere down the hall, and he turned around in time to see Waylon emerge, shoulders slumped. He caught sight of Miles and trudged toward him.

“Lisa’s leaving,” he said. “She’s taking the boys with her. They’re going to stay with a relative, lay low for a while until this blows over.” He looked down at his left hand, clenched his fist. “And maybe after that, too.”

“Shit, man.” Miles pushed himself to his aching feet, then stood facing Waylon with no idea what to say next.

“You and I will be going on alone from here.” His eyes slid past Miles, out the window.

Nodding, Miles watched him for a moment, and when he didn’t speak again, asked, “So....where are we going?”

“I didn’t tell you before, because I didn’t want you running off and getting yourself killed. There was this document I picked up, one that describes the transfer protocol for Project Walrider subjects being sent to another facility. There are more experiments going on, and if they were successful once they could be successful again.” He delivered this information with a level voice, but at the end of it he stopped, eyes focusing back on Miles with pupil that wouldn't sit still. “We need to stop them.”

Miles grinned, and he could feel the walrider snap to attention behind his eyes. “Hell yeah. There’s nothing I want more.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's it. thanks for sticking with me. part 2 starts....eventually....


End file.
